


Asylum (I Will Not Take These Things For Granted, Anymore)

by luninosity



Series: The Epic Universe of Porn, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Trauma, and Love [22]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) RPF
Genre: About Time, Also There's A Lot Of Sex, Best Husbands Ever, Collars, Comfort, Consensual Kink, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, Happy Ending, Healing, Hope, Light BDSM, Love, M/M, Mention Of Various Family And Friends, Past Abuse, Rape/Non-con References, Sexual Content, Spanking, Wedding Night, Wedding-Presents, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-19
Updated: 2013-04-19
Packaged: 2017-12-08 22:46:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James and Michael, the wedding day and wedding night, after everything, at last; happy endings that are real, and deserved. Plus all the sex ever, and hotel rooms with fantastical headboards.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title for this one from Toad The Wet Sprocket’s “I Will Not Take These Things For Granted”: _how can I hold the part of me that only you can carry/ it needs a strength I haven't found/ but if it's frightening, I'll bear the cold/ and on the telephone you offer warm asylum/ I'm listening/ music in the bedroom, laughter in the hall…_
> 
> Thank you, thank you, to everyone who’s stuck with this ’verse, from the beginning when I’d no idea what it’d eventually turn into, through the brutal first stories of the Continuation, all the way to this happy ending. This is for you, everyone who left comments and kudos here or at LJ, who encouraged me, and read bits, and wanted to see their wedding. (And, you never know—there might be snippets in this ’verse, from time to time, if requests or the ideas turn up. It’ll be hard to leave them behind, even with the next Epic Thing on the horizon…)

(not eleven months, two weeks, four days)  
(instead, day one)  
  
Michael woke up, on their wedding day, to the rustle of leaves in the wind, and the gleam of early autumn sunshine wandering curiously through the room, and James naked in his arms. The world was very bright, wrapped in stillness and expectance and calm morning light, and everything, even the sheets and the bedside table and James’s half-open closet door, sparkled as if brand new.  
                    
They’d ended up curled together like spoons, fitting neatly in the shared space of their familiar bed. James made an ideal little spoon, all cuddly hair and delectable freckles and compact muscles; he had his head pillowed on one of Michael’s arms, and Michael’s other arm’d stayed comfortably around him, anchored by a drowsy hand. He could feel the motion of air as James breathed, steady and sleep-warmed and relaxed.  
  
Relaxed, he reiterated, just so that he could hear it one more time, in his head. Trusting. Feeling safe, sleeping naked, sleeping _with_ him. Incredible. Impossible to believe, even now, except that it was all true.  
  
He couldn’t move, because he didn’t want to break the enchantment just yet, but he also couldn’t not kiss James at that second, so he settled for breathing a kiss into the hair. James made a kind of sleepy murmur, and repositioned his head on Michael’s arm, and went back to dreaming, unperturbed.  
  
Dreams. Not nightmares. Michael tried, without moving any body part whatsoever, to watch those closed eyes, lashes resting over soft skin. Found his gaze wandering all along that beloved shape, tucked so perfectly into his. Back up, to those so-memorable lips, the arch of a cheekbone, the dusting of the morning’s coppery stubble.  
  
Maybe James wouldn’t shave, if Michael asked him not to. James always laughed, and blushed, confronted with the unexpected colorful strands—“I don’t know why, it’s not as if I’m ginger anywhere else!”—and Michael considered it part of his mission in life to demonstrate to James that gingers did in fact have the most fun. Beyond wildest dreams.  
  
All at once, he found himself wondering what James dreamed about, these days.  
  
Not the remaining occasional nightmares, few and far between if not altogether gone—they both knew those too well, and James always told him, waking—but the memories that wandered into nighttime worlds. Ordinary things? Books, baking, obscure science-fiction references? Camera crews and lighting and the life he’d never mentioned going back to? Other things entirely, random and unconnected to their home here together?  
  
He didn’t know. James might tell him, if he asked. Probably would.  
  
James had promised, on the golden afternoon Michael would always consider their real anniversary, to be his. Always. In so many ways.  
  
He couldn’t see the scars, either, from his current position. None encircling those articulate wrists, of course. Bruises, yes, now long-healed, but James hadn’t been awake enough to struggle against cruel metal cuffs for long.  
  
Very tentatively, the previous night, they’d tried restraints again. Michael’d not planned on it, hadn’t even been considering the idea; not a possibility, he’d thought. Not ever. And he’d been fine with that.  
  
James had looked up at him and smiled, one of Michael’s hands wrapped around his wrists, the other busy trying to touch him everywhere and maintain balance and act as leverage at the same time. “You know…you can use both hands. If you want.”  
  
“But you like—”  
  
“Being held down? By you? Yes, I do. But…you can use something else. Your ties, that black silk one, maybe, or…I don’t know, whatever you can think of. I trust you. Oh, wait—I mean I trust you, sir.”  
  
“…seriously?”  
  
James had smiled again, joy like the profoundest depths of the ocean, limitless blue. “Yes.”  
  
“Yes,” Michael’d whispered back. Yes.  
  
 _Nothing I can’t get out of_ , James had said, that first beautiful healing astonishing time, lying protected in his arms. _No handcuffs, or not yet, anyway. Not because I’m afraid. Only because I like knowing you’d give me that._  
  
The words had made sense, and he’d nodded, agreeing. He’d never ask more than James wanted to give; they both understood that. Himself listening to that request—and he would regardless, anything James asked for—would be one more reminder: James was here, doing this with him, no one else.  
  
Glancing around the room, giddily, he’d had a brilliant, and fairly wicked, idea. James hadn’t questioned him, but had laughed for several minutes, at least until Michael raised eyebrows in his direction and grumbled insincere threats about leaving him tied up all night.  
  
He wouldn’t really, and James knew that too, but the words had to be said. Proper mindsets were important. And James had stretched arms above his head, a lazily insouciant gesture of obedience, and murmured, demurely, “Sorry, sir.”  
  
Lying there with James beside him in the peaceful idyll of morning, he heard the purr of that Scottish-velvet voice through memory. Let his gaze travel along the line of James’s throat, or what could be seen of it beneath all the hair in the universe, leaping in all directions over his neck.  
  
No scars there either. It’d be easy to look at James in daylight, out walking around, and forget that anything’d ever happened, that they’d gone through months of silence and agony and bruises like an obscene necklace branded into soft skin.  
  
That there was one razor-defined line, splitting freckles in two along a sturdy forearm, that hadn’t come from the ordeal itself.  
  
He held James a little more tightly, probably too tightly, and breathed, for a while. James was here, with him. Here and now.  
  
James _was_ here. With him. Currently not-quite-snoring over his arm, lazy sounds that said, to Michael’s heart, still alive.  
  
James had proposed to him. Had held out rings, golden and shining, and asked Michael to marry him. To be with him forever, for all of that future they’d been so afraid would never come.  
  
Today, they were getting married. In public, before witnesses, under the sunlight and the open sky. Today _was_ that future.  
  
He closed his eyes, and breathed in the scent of James’s hair, dark silk and apple shampoo and morning promises. A strand of it snuck into his mouth, and let him taste it, too.  
  
In a few minutes they’d need to get up, to get dressed, to make their way over to the actual site of the ceremony, to join all the preparations. But not yet. James could sleep for a while longer, safe in his arms.  
  
“Whatever you want,” he’d said, months earlier. They’d been settled on the squashable couch, himself propped up against one arm and James securely tucked between his legs, flipping through wedding magazines, all glossy profusions of flowers and fabric and tabletop lanterns. “Anything you say you like, you can have. I mean that.”  
  
James’d glanced up, grinning, eyes affectionately merry. “Are you sure? What if I decide I want everyone in kilts, and a Beatles cover band?”  
  
“Yes?” He had promised. He _did_ mean it. Really.  
  
“Kidding. Although I might not mind seeing you in a kilt sometime. You’ve seen me in mine.”  
  
“Not necessarily in public, but all right, if you want me to. Sometime. And…I’ve seen you _out_ of yours.”  
  
“Technically not, as I recall. You were feeling impatient.”  
  
“You weren’t exactly complaining.”  
  
“Very true. About the wedding…” James’d looked down, at the current open page, full of sunshine and long tables under broad sky. “I might want to get married outside.”  
  
“We can do that.” He picked up James’s hand. Squeezed. Didn’t ask why. He thought maybe he knew.  
  
“Would you mind? I know you still…I’ve been to churches. With you. In Italy. And you were even an altar boy.”  
  
“I was a terrible altar boy, and you also know I don’t care. Or not that much. My mother might—”  
  
“Oh, sorry—all right, then, would you rather—”  
  
“James,” Michael’d said, and squeezed his hand again, “this is _our_ wedding. About us. Not my mother. You’d feel better, with all the people, if we were outside, right?”  
  
“…probably.”  
  
“Well, then.”  
  
“You know…we are in California, what if…”  
  
“You end up with a sunburn every time you even think about a beach, you know.”  
  
“There’re ways around that. And it would be perfect, you have to admit. And…” James had glanced back at the page, then up at Michael again, all mischievous intent. “As I recall, you once compared my eyes to…let me see if I’ve remembered the wording right…magical mermaid-inhabited oceans.”  
  
“You have to also remember I was incredibly drunk at the time. But I’ll stand by it. Mermaids and all.” He’d lifted that hand, in his, and kissed it, for that. James had grinned, and done something complicatedly flexible with his other arm, such that it ended up wrapped around Michael’s leg and still able to turn pages.  
  
“Anyway…I like the idea of the ocean. Being able to see that far, out into the distance…”  
  
“New horizons,” Michael’d said, softly; was rewarded by a quick flash of smile. “All right. Beach. Sunset, though.”  
  
“Sunset yes. And we’ll invite any passing mermaids and mermen—merpeople?—who turn up for martinis.”  
  
Michael, torn between rolling his eyes, holding James even more decisively, and conceding that if any merpeople did exist they’d likely stop by just for those blue eyes, had settled for, “You’re not allowed to dance with any attractive mermen even if they ask.” James had started laughing, stopped, said innocently, “What about satyrs, then?” and Michael’d been forced to shove the wedding magazines off the sofa and thoroughly remind him that that particular music-video role was never to be the subject of discussion under any circumstances ever, and that never in this case meant only when James might need a ridiculous rule to break in order to be playfully scolded.  
  
He watched a single stray sunbeam tiptoe through a crack in the blinds. Followed it while it painted a stripe of gold-white light over the back of a freckled hand, the one holding his own.  
  
He could believe that, James wanting those roles, the laughing submission and discipline, because he trusted those blue eyes when they looked fearlessly into his, when James said yes and please and more. He found himself in awe of that fearlessness, every single time; but he did believe it.  
  
Traditionally, they should’ve spent the night apart. Not seen each other the morning of the wedding. But that hadn’t even been a question. Neither of them wanted to be alone; neither of them wanted James to have to be alone, even with other people around. They’d both wanted to wake up here, in the bed they’d shared through so many long frightened months, in the house where James had begun to smile at him, slowly, through the hurt. James had kissed him for the first time in that bathroom, down the hall; had set his hand over Michael’s heart, their bodies lying close among the bed-pillows, and tapped fingertips in time with the beat.  
  
They had a hotel room for the night to come. He’d asked James about that beforehand, once it’d occurred to him that hotel corridors and featureless walls might trigger vicious flashbacks to the nightmarish beginnings of trauma. James’d looked contemplative, momentarily, eyes a little remote; Michael’d bitten his lip and waited, telling himself not to push, for the reply to take shape.  
  
James had said yes. Had looked back at him, clouds vanishing in the expanse of blue, and told him that it’d feel like a beginning, like their beginning, the other hotel rooms they’d shared, so many months before. Michael’d released the breath he’d not realized he’d been holding, and kissed him. Made the reservation.  
  
James yawned and sighed and nestled more deeply into the cuddling, shifting his hips against Michael’s. Obviously found a welcoming spot, because he wriggled one last time, content, and went back to sleep.  
  
Michael stared at the clock. The alarm was about to go off, one minute away, and he attempted to figure out how to reach it before it could shrill the alert into the gilt-edged morning air. This proved to be an impossible puzzle, because James was anchoring his arms; and the noise collided with the silence like a discourteous avalanche.  
  
James flinched, blinked, opened his eyes; “ _Fuck_ ,” Michael said, with emphasis, and lunged across him to smack the offending machinery until it stopped. “Sorry, sorry, go back to sleep…”  
  
Tropical-water eyes considered that comment for a second; and then James raised an eyebrow at him, eloquently.  
  
“Oh—here—but you really can go back to sleep, we’ve got time, or at least another five minutes of time, you can have that…” But he was handing over the bedside water anyway, talking.  
  
James took it out of his hand, took a sip, swallowed. Coaxed the first words of the morning out of his throat and into audible existence. “Don’t we have to be prompt? We are sort of the most important people of the day.”  
  
“We are, yes. That means they’ll all not mind waiting for us. More?” The bottle was nearly empty; he’d collected a full one before bed, as usual, but James had been drinking out of it before falling asleep, claiming to be thirsty. It might’ve been true, or might’ve been a desire to appreciate the gesture; James did that, sometimes, he’d learned. A nonverbal thank-you, with a smile.  
  
James _was_ fine, these days, these mornings. No pain glittering sharply around the corners of the words. Simply easier, with a sip of water, assistance, smoothing the way for that initial venture into speech.  
  
James’d told him that much on a misty evening, the lights of nighttime wreathed in shimmering grey, volunteering the explanation in response to Michael’s questioning glance at the bottle on the nightstand. Michael’d brought him water the next night. And the night after that. All the nights, so that James could awaken with it beside him every day.  
  
“No, it’s fine, I’ll just finish this one. And I love you.” A pause, a drink; Michael watched him swallow, watched an escaping drop slip past his lips and trickle over his chin, glinting like diamond. Wet lips parted, and met again, an invitation. “Did you really wake me up on the morning of our wedding by saying fuck, by the way? Not certain that’s the best omen.”  
  
“It’s a perfect omen,” Michael said promptly, “it’s what I’m planning to do with you, tonight. After we’re officially married. And I love you, too, and are you sure?”  
  
“That I love you, or about finishing the water? Yes to both.” James sat up, stretched, yawned again, wholly naked, not bothering to hide. The scars stretched and pulled as well, under the light; old, by now, and companionable, they went unremarked, and did not mind. “Coffee, though…”  
  
“Coffee yes. You…wait here, all right? Don’t get up.”  
  
“ _Really_ not an invalid.”  
  
“No—what? No. Not—you know I don’t think that. I mean—I don’t, James, I swear. I mean I’m trying to surprise you. I have a surprise for you. Um. I’m sorry.”  
  
James, who’d been staring at him more and more incredulously throughout the entire tangled proclamation, now looked as if he wanted to laugh; at least, the corners of those lips were twitching. “All right…”  
  
“…all right?”  
  
“Yes, absolutely, all right, go on, surprise me. I promise not to move.” James flopped comfortably down into the pillows. Then lifted that head back up to grin at him. “At least not if you’re quick about it.”  
  
“Oh,” Michael said, “no, hang on, I think that was me giving you an order, not the other way around,” and then leaned down, kissed him through all the laughter, and jumped off the bed. In search of coffee. And his surprise.  
  
  
James, left to wait in the bed with all the pillows, looked at them for a second. They looked back, all steadfast blue nonchalance. The pillowcases, and the sheets, were nearly the same color as his eyes; he’d blushed ferociously when Michael’d picked them out, when Michael’d glanced from them to him with a look that said _I’m imagining you spread out atop these and framed by this color, just for me_.  
  
He’d changed the sheets that same evening, without announcing the fact, and Michael’s expression had been thoroughly satisfactory.  
  
Everything, with Michael, was thoroughly satisfactory, and more. Even the imperfections, he thought, and grinned at the now-empty water-bottle, on the nightstand. It grinned back, in plastic conspiracy.  
  
A surprise. Of course they were getting each other wedding presents; he’d been forced to admit his own plans to do so when Michael’d walked in on his phone call regarding arrangements. “I’m getting you something, too,” Michael’d admitted, grey-blue-green eyes dancing, color shifting with amusement, “but you can’t have it yet, it’ll take some time,” and James had instantly demanded clues. “It’s not a pearl necklace,” Michael had said, and James had started laughing, because of course pearls _were_ the traditional wedding gift, because his grandmother’d asked them mock-mournfully the day before whether one of them couldn’t just make her happy and borrow hers.  
  
They’d ended up in bed, because these days the sound of James laughing tended to prompt Michael into sweeping him off to the bedroom or the sofa or on one memorable occasion the kitchen table. And Michael’d proceeded to cover his chest, and face, with other, more or less pearl-reminiscent, decorations.  
  
Remembering, he smiled a little. Sat up, still naked, and stuck his feet under the closest sheet-hill for warmth. The fabric wound itself around his toes, helpful as a kitten.  
  
Michael came back down the hall, preceded by the scents of white chocolate and raspberry and smokily roasted beans. “You didn’t get dressed. Not cold?”  
  
“Not really. It’s a nice morning. Is that box for me, and should I open it now?”  
  
“Yes, and yes, and here.” Michael sat down beside him; the mattress dipped, accepting the added weight, and James leaned into that taller familiar shape, just because he could. Took the mug with one hand, and the box with the other, and then paused, feeling a pang of guilt.  
  
“I…don’t have yours yet. Or, well, I sort of do, but…there’s one more piece. That’s not quite here. Do you mind waiting, or should I wait for this and let us do them at the same time, or—”  
  
“I want you,” Michael said, and kissed him one more time, swift and bright and raspberry-flavored because Michael’d almost certainly taste-tested the cup before bringing it in, “to do whatever you want to do. But I would like you to open this. The anticipation’s been half-killing me all week, just so you know.”  
  
“Well, we very much don’t want that…” He set the coffee to one side, out of reach of awkward elbows or limbs, just in case. Took a deep breath; opened the box, lid lifting off smoothly at his touch.  
  
Then found himself raising eyebrows at his husband’s face, baffled, curious. “You…bought me a model airplane?”  
  
He heard Michael take a deep breath, in and out, and then, “The real one might’ve been a bit too big to fit in the box…”  
  
“The real—oh my god.”  
  
“There’s something else. Um. Under there.”  
  
He took out the piece of paper. Unfolded it, slowly. And then just sat there staring while his brain fell over itself attempting to process.  
  
A photocopy. A photocopy of very official certification. With a sentence scribbled at the bottom, in the angular sprawl of Michael’s handwriting: _Just tell me where you want to go_.  
  
“You…this is a…when did you get a pilot’s license…?”  
  
“Well…you know I’ve been having a lot of meetings, lately…”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“They might not’ve been all meetings, exactly.”  
  
“You…bought us a plane?”  
  
“I thought,” Michael said, and shifted the weight on the mattress next to him, gaze earnest, “if you wanted to, we could go home.”  
  
Home. London. England, or even Scotland or Ireland, with their families. Without needing to walk through crowded commercial airports, or being searched by overzealous security guards, or waiting in a cramped space surrounded by sweaty strangers. They could go _home_.  
  
Freedom. Michael’d given him that.  
  
Michael, who was observing him rather worriedly, hesitance in those Irish-heather eyes. Clearly wondering whether he’d presumed too much, been too condescending, asked more than James could consider, right now.  
  
He touched the paper again. Ran his fingers over Michael’s handwritten addition, feeling the tiny dips and lines of the pen-tip, the ink.  
  
“You bought us a plane.”  
  
“…yes?”  
  
“I…can kind of see you as a pilot. You do like things that go fast. And I like that, too.”  
  
“James…”  
  
“I love you _so fucking much_ ,” James said, and then started to cry, even though he’d been telling himself he wouldn’t.  
  
Michael’s arms went around him instantly, box tossed to the side of the bed to lie in the obliging sunbeam; the arms were firm and fierce and loving and strong.  
  
“I’m all right,” James attempted to say, sniffling, hiccupping slightly, smiling, “I’m fine, I don’t know why—I’m only happy, that’s all, I promise—I love you, I love you, stop looking at me like that and kiss me, please, right now,” and Michael tightened the arms around him and dropped a kiss on the corner of his mouth.  
  
“Better? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to surprise you with—well, I did, I thought you might like—but I should’ve thought—”  
  
“No, this is perfect, you’re perfect, you’re wonderful. I’m so glad I get to marry you. You know that, right? How much I want this—want you?”  
  
“Oh,” Michael said, smiling now with all those teeth despite the lurking suggestion of waterfalls in kaleidoscopic eyes, “I know you want me. I want you, too.”  
  
“I’m—”  
  
“I know. I love you. Here, or back home in London, or anywhere. I did say. All you ever have to do is tell me, wherever, whenever, you want to go.” Michael’s hand reached out, stroked through his hair, settled on the back of his neck, hot and possessive and secure. “And you do know we’re already married.”  
  
“Well—not legally, technically—”  
  
“What did I tell you, then? That afternoon?”  
  
James tipped his head up, and pressed lips to the line of his husband’s jaw, feeling as buoyant as the sunbeams, traveling weightlessly through the air. “You said this was real. We put on the rings, and you said yes to me, and I said yes to you, and you said that made it real. Forever.”  
  
“Exactly.” Michael caught his chin, kissed him back, nipped briefly at his lower lip, a reminder. “So. Technically, as you were saying, you _are_ my husband.”  
  
“I do like your phrasing,” James said, after a busy second of more kissing, when he could find the space to summon words again. “Your husband. Yours. Sir.”  
  
“Mine,” Michael agreed, and skimmed a thumbtip along his eyelashes, chasing the last whispers of teardrops away. “And I’m yours. Forever. You probably shouldn’t call me that again, or I’m not going to let you out of bed at all this morning, and then we really are going to be late…”  
  
“Oh, no—” A glimpse of the clock was enough; James sat up more, and grabbed his caffeine defensively, them versus the morning hour.  “We need to shower—and pack, I don’t have anything for overnight, yet—”  
  
“Already taken care of.” Michael sounded rather too smug, taking his hand and towing him toward the bathroom. So James grinned back at him, feeling the exultation rise like sparkling wine, champagne-bubbles and sunshine scampering through his veins, and gulped down another sip of dessert-flavored coffee, and said, properly obedient, eyes lowered just to get _that_ specific growl in response, “Thank you, sir.”  
  
Michael didn’t let him out of the shower for quite some time, in the end.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a ceremony, and promises are exchanged.

The hotel was a spectacular one. Not the newest, or the largest, but updated, all white walls and breezy windows and casual beachfront elegance. Michael’d known it was the right one the second he’d taken James there and those expressive eyes had lit up at first glimpse; the hotel itself knew it too, he thought now, as he stood in the reserved wedding-preparation room by one of those windows, idly gazing out at the swell of the surf. It wanted them there. Wanted them to be happy, there.  
  
That was, of course, a James thought, one Michael would’ve never had on his own, in times past. But he believed, glancing around, that it was true.  
  
They’d walked out onto the sand, the ocean crashing joyfully a few feet away, a flustered hotel manager orbiting around them with equal parts enthusiasm and dismay at the short notice and the celebrity ceremony. James had looked up at him with a smile flickering like the wind around the corners of those lips, and Michael’d brushed an equally windblown strand of hair out of blue eyes and glanced over at their distressed satellite companion and promised he’d pay whatever price might be demanded.  
  
Worth it, for that smile. Worth everything.  
  
He played with the friendly weight of the pocket watch in his hands, and waited for James to finish poking at wayward hair, in the restroom. The hair didn’t need the assistance, and Michael was planning to run hands through it anyway, but he suspected that James was using the last-minute tidying as a distraction from nerves.  
  
He wanted to ask about those nerves—surely not about the actual wedding, he couldn’t imagine that, though the voice had been a bit shaky, earlier, before James’d vanished into the restroom—but he wasn’t certain how to phrase the question, yet. James would tell him if it were important; he did believe that.  
  
He fiddled with the pocket watch again. The weight felt solid, and real, rolling through his fingers.  
  
“James?” he’d inquired, that morning, after they’d finally made it out of the shower, soap-scrubbed and thoroughly pleasured; and then had said it again after James reemerged from the depths of the closet, blinking.  
  
“What? Also, have you seen my—”  
  
“Your shoes are under the bed. Your shoe _laces_ are still tied to the headboard. From last night.”  
  
“Oh…thank you. Though I’m not sure I can wear these in front of people in…four hours from now…at least not without thinking about last night. And probably blushing in front of your parents. Sorry, what were you asking about?”  
  
“That was the idea, and can I borrow your pocket watch?”  
  
“Neither of us is actually a bride, you know!” James had been laughing, though. “But of course yes. And it’s your fault if I spend the entire wedding being turned on by the sight of my own feet. And if we’re doing that, then, can I borrow your cufflinks? The Magneto-helmet ones?”  
  
“Seriously? I’m almost completely certain Ian gave me those as a joke. I’ve never even worn them.”  
  
“I like them!”  
  
“I like _you_.”  
  
“Oh,” James’d said, grinning, coming over with watch in hand, held out like a promise, “I did think you might. A little. Sometimes.”  
  
“All the times,” Michael’d concurred, and they’d traded accessories, along with kisses, and finished packing the bags.  
  
It _was_ a nice hotel. Historic, even, the location if not the building dating back over a century. He did enjoy history. Stability. Places with roots, connections, stories to tell. He always had.  
  
He’d tied James to a bedpost, once, in a different historic hotel. Had pushed him to his knees, and spanked him, fucked him, used the slim sleek length of the cane on his backside, ordered him to get himself off on command, to come from only the antique wooden furniture shoved hard between spread legs and the sweet shock of Michael’s hands on his skin. Because James had asked. Because James wanted that. From him.  
  
Those days were behind them, he thought; he couldn’t imagine James ever asking again, or himself being able to raise a hand against once-wounded freckles. But the memories were good ones. And so were the newer recollections. Blue eyes gazing into his, as James knelt on the bed, nearly his same height in that particular pose, awaiting his command. James breathing softly, as Michael’s hands explored his body, all the scars old and new. James saying words with open eyes and quiet passion: _I want to be yours, please, all of me, sir._  
  
 _Yes_ , he’d said back, then. _All of you. All mine. Because you want to be._  
  
“Yes,” he said now, softly, to the palm-tree afternoon and the neighboring ocean and the muffled Scottish-accented grumbles about misbehaving hair.  
  
James popped his head out of the restroom. “Sorry, did you say something?”  
  
“You’re incredible.”  
  
“Am not. You look fantastic, by the way, in case I forgot to tell you. Not that you don’t always, but this…I definitely approve.”  
  
“Thank you. And so do you. Look fantastic, I mean.” True. They weren’t being terribly formal—dressing up, yes, but not full tuxedos, not for a beachside wedding, not as relaxed and personal as they’d wanted the evening to be. White shirts and grey suits, simple and classic, but neatly tailored, too, and the fine linen embraced every line of James’s body in a way that invited enthusiastic removal later, if not immediately, on the spot.  
  
Their ties were blue. Michael’d been adamant about that one.  
  
A knock echoed from beyond the door, followed by a call of, “It’s us!” and Michael shouted back, “Come in!” and got smothered by a tidal wave of sisterly affection. Joy hugged him first, mostly because his own sister was busy looking him up and down and smirking.  
  
“Not bad. James is good for your fashion sense.”  
  
“James is good at a _lot_ of things,” Michael shot back, innuendo firmly in place, just to see her expression. This had the side effect of James’s sister punching him in the shoulder, in flagrant defiance of her diaphanous chiffon bridesmaid’s dress. “I do _not_ need to think about you in bed with my big brother, Michael Fassbender.”  
  
“James,” Michael said, “your sister’s trying to maim me, please help,” and James reappeared from around the corner, eyebrows up. “He’s not wrong, you know. I am very good at a lot of things. Including the in-bed sorts of things.”  
  
“Oh god…”  
  
“I love you too.” James held out his arms, and Joy launched herself into them, with more force than Michael would’ve approved; she said something inaudible into James’s ear, and he nodded, and hugged her, even when she squeezed tightly enough to make him yelp.  
  
Catherine looked over at Michael. “Want me to hug you?”  
  
Michael considered this. Then decided to be honest. “Yes?”  
  
And she grinned, and flung her arms around him. Said, “I would’ve anyway, and him too, and I’m just so _happy_ for you two, you—I love you and you’re going to be so happy and you both deserve it, so much, and I’m happy for you and I love you—” and Michael got out, “I know, I know—” and then just gave up on talking and hugged her in return.  
  
“Okay,” Cat said, after a while, letting him go, stepping back. “We’re actually here to collect you. Patrick sent us up.”  
  
“And Ian says that if you want to be waiting for James at the altar you need to get your sexy ass down there immediately. His words, not mine.”  
  
That was probably true; both Sir Ian and Sir Patrick had been thrilled to be asked, Patrick as more or less master of ceremonies and Ian—who was, as it turned out, conveniently legally ordained—as the officiant, and they’d been all but bouncing off the walls with glee ever since.  
  
That one had been James’s idea. And it’d been a good one; they’d agreed that they wanted intimate, small, meaningful, only the people most important to them both. Family, of course. A few close friends. And Patrick and Ian, who’d been there on that first dread-filled night, and after, through the agonizing days immediately following the abduction, while James lay traumatized and voiceless in a sterile white hospital bed.  
  
Ian’d teared up, upon being asked, and then tried to promise he’d not cry during the ceremony itself, and then admitted that he probably would, and Patrick had snickered and then surreptitiously snuck out a handkerchief and dabbed at his eyes.  
  
They’d decided weeks ago that Michael would be the one at the altar, waiting for James; he’d honestly not had a preference, himself, and had said so, lying propped up on his elbows in bed, gazing at acres of pinwheel freckles displayed like exotic artwork just for him.  
  
“Hmm.” James, thoroughly naked and worn out and visibly completely content, had rolled his head to the side, to make eye contact. The sweat was drying on his skin, lending it a golden sheen; Michael considered this evidence of success.  
  
“I might want to walk down the aisle to you. If we’re doing that.”  
  
If he’d had to guess, he might’ve imagined the other way around. James did enjoy being asked to wait. “Really?”  
  
“Um…I think so, yes.” With a grin, sideways and happy. Hair fell into his eyes; Michael reached over and brushed it back. James could move his own hands, of course—he’d been sure to say as much—but plainly had opted not to. “I like…the idea of coming to you. Of you watching me, accepting me, when I do. Or something; not sure that makes any kind of sense, I’m too tired to make sense, just now…”  
  
“I’m taking that as a compliment. And…yes. I think I can see that. You coming in, coming to me, while I wait for you…”  
  
“I wonder,” James’d said, almost to himself, and then had moved a hand after all, touching his throat, a sudden fleeting motion of freckles.  
  
“You wonder what? Are you—” He’d copied the gesture, gingerly, asking in as many ways as he knew how. “—is everything—all right?”  
  
“What? Yes. Sorry. Really fine.” James had licked his lips, and scooted closer, and put his head on Michael’s offered shoulder. “Not important, just a thought I had.”  
  
“I like knowing your thoughts…”  
  
“I know. But…” James tapped fingertips over his ribs, lazily, comforting. “I’m still thinking. I’ll tell you later. Once I’ve figured it out. Okay?”  
  
“Um. If you want—if you’re asking for that, then okay. You know you can tell me anything, though? I can listen. I’m here.”  
  
“Yes,” James’d said, smiling, sketching a heart over his hip with playful fingers, “I know.”  
  
James hadn’t told him, not later, not even yet. Michael, in fact, had nearly forgotten; something indefinable in that expression, in those sea-spray eyes, summer evenings over shifting moon-drawn tides, reminded him now.  
  
He reached for the closest hand. Held on. This earned a quicksilver smile, luminosity in the ocean depths, iridescently outlined gratitude.  
  
“You two,” Joy said, shaking her head. “Disgustingly sweet. Like, seriously, cotton candy and sleepy kittens, or something. Michael, you really do need to go, we’ll wait up here with my brother, and I promise we won’t leave him alone, not for a second—”  
  
“That’s absolutely completely terrifying, coming from you,” James said conversationally, and Joy laughed. “Come on, you’ll be late to your own wedding…”  
  
Michael looked at James. Sighed, half-reluctantly: the word _wedding_ was still hanging intoxicatingly in the air. Lifted freckled fingertips, kissed them; saw the smile at the old-fashioned intimacy, and smiled in return. And then, as he started to step away, felt those fingers close more tightly around his.  
  
He stopped. “James…?”  
  
One breath, a rapid small inhale. That was enough; Michael turned, not letting go. “Joy? Cat? Could you give us a minute, please?” It wasn’t really a question.  
  
After they’d gone out, eyes concerned—he’d not’ve put it past both siblings to be listening at the door—he tugged James in a little closer. Put both hands on his shoulders. “Can you tell me?”  
  
A nod; James was looking at him, which was good, despite the infinitesimal quivering, under Michael’s hands. “I’m only…I’m not scared of this, of you, of—I want to do this.”  
  
“Good?”  
  
That earned a small smile, and James relaxed, ever so slightly, into his touch. Kept talking, safely guarded inside the shield of Michael’s arms. He tried to be the strongest fortress he could, while that voice went on.  
  
“I just keep thinking…this can’t be real, it can’t be right, I’m not…something’s going to happen, right before I make it to you, something or someone or—I know he’s gone but I can’t—I feel like I can’t breathe, thinking about you—about you walking out that door, and I know you’ll be waiting for me but what if I can’t find you, what if something goes wrong, it has to, I can’t—have this, I can’t be this happy—”  
  
“Oh,” Michael whispered, softly, “oh, James,” and folded both arms around him and simply held him, that head on his shoulder, under the pale gold of the hotel lamplight.  
  
After a while, he added, “I love you,” and, “Breathe, just breathe, please,” and James nodded, hair shivering along Michael’s face, and did as asked, in and out, measured and slow, Michael’s hand rubbing his back through the layers of expensive suit.  
  
Time drifted by, unhurriedly.  
  
“Better?”  
  
“Yes.” Into his shirt collar, words ghosting warm along his neck. “Yes, sir. Thank you.”  
  
“Oh…James, you don’t need to…”  
  
“It’s only reassurance.” James tipped his head up, to meet Michael’s eyes with his own. “I felt like saying it. I love you.”  
  
“I love you.” Michael brought their lips together, lightly enough to be a question; James smiled, into the kiss. Opened his mouth, and kissed back.  
  
A tentative tap at the door reverberated into their space; he looked at James, inquiring, and got the head-tilt of agreement, so he called back, “Come in!”  
  
Patrick Stewart put his head into the opening. “Ah…”  
  
“We’re coming.” He didn’t bother to move the arms. They wanted to stay around James. “But, um. Small change of plans. We’re walking down together. Just let everyone know, maybe, and come back and get us?”  
  
And Patrick nodded, and said, simply, “Of course,” and ducked back out, presumably to go orchestrate the entrance all over again and work a few minor miracles along the way.  
  
“I really do love him,” James sighed, into Michael’s shoulder.  
  
“As long as you love me more. Want to go get married?”  
  
“I thought,” James said, and put both arms around his waist, holding him in return, “we already were.”  
  
And the waves splashed beyond the window, in dramatic punctuation.  
  
The ceremony itself was taking place outside, just before sundown; the tent billowed whitely in the breeze, and the sun shone with all its might, and the whole world glowed in shades of gold and cloud and ocean-blue. Michael’s parents were in a front row, next to James’s grandparents; all four of them seemed to be crying, though James’s grandmother also seemed to be determinedly pretending she wasn’t. Catherine and Joy, in their matching dresses, stood up by the altar, beaming; Ian, practically vibrating with delight, was beaming too.  
  
And Michael barely noticed any of them. He was looking at James.  
  
Who walked down the hastily smoothed-over sand-aisle at his side. Upright and smiling, if a little pale, and holding his hand.  
  
They’d planned for it to be quick. Simple, straightforward, heartfelt. They were already wearing rings, the ones James had bought months ago; the set Michael’d picked out, the first time the question’d been asked, remained at home, in a dresser drawer. James’s didn’t quite fit, not yet, but it would.  
  
James had been just a little despondent, at that; he’d been hoping to’ve regained enough weight to wear them by the wedding day. Michael had kissed him, the week before, and told him they’d still be there. Whenever he could wear his, they’d be there.  
  
Secretly, he wasn’t sure he’d want to trade, when the time came. He’d be perfectly happy wearing the ring that James had chosen for him, his half of the supposedly temporary set, for the rest of his life.  
  
James squeezed his hand. Mouthed, _I love you_ , when Michael looked into his eyes.  
  
“You’re not doing your vows yet,” Ian said, “stop being impatient, James, you’re getting ahead of me,” and a ripple of laughter spread through the circle of family around them. Michael said, “I love you being impatient, James,” and the laughter melted into a collective adoring chorus of sighs.  
  
“You two deserve each other,” Ian grumbled, and then edited that statement: “In all honesty…you genuinely do. You listen to each other, and you look at each other with such joy, and you’ve been there for each other in ways that the rest of us can’t begin to imagine. You’re here today because you are in love, and because you know exactly how much that means.”  
  
James was blinking rapidly, obviously trying not to cry; Michael picked up his other hand, too, and held them both, thumbs caressing the backs of his hands, connecting all the freckles, under the light.  
  
“So,” Ian said, “because James _is_ impatient, and Michael’s going to do just about anything to indulge him, including telling me to hurry up within the next five seconds…”  
  
Michael, who had in fact been contemplating exactly that, though not yet prepared to speak up, shut his mouth on the words; caught James’s brilliant smile.  
  
“James, do you take Michael to be your husband? Freely, in front of family and friends, to join your lives together?”  
  
“Yes,” James said, and those eyes were so very blue. “Yes. I do.”  
  
“Michael—”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“You could let me finish the question, first.”  
  
“Sorry, Ian.”  
  
“Hush. Same question. Do you take James as your husband, here, freely, in front of family and friends, to join your lives together?”  
  
“Yes,” Michael said, quietly, fervently, with all of his heart. “I do.”  
  
At this point there was a pause, during which everyone, including the officiant, hunted for tissues. Michael reached over and used both thumbs to brush the tears away from James’s eyes; James took a step forward, into his arms, and stayed there.  
  
“Right,” Ian said, resurfacing from Patrick’s handkerchief, “you wanted to do your own vows, which makes my job easy, so go ahead. James?”  
  
“Oh, I’m first, I’m not certain that’s fair, now that I can’t talk without crying…Michael.” James didn’t move out of his arms, but did tip that head back, looking directly into his eyes, hair leaping upwards in the breeze. “I had a hard time with what I wanted to say, at first. Because I wanted to say so many things, to you. Because I could—I can—say things to you, now.” That smile turned a little rueful, crooked, accepting. Michael whispered, “I love you,” and got a laugh, small and vivid and warm.  
  
“Really,” James said, continuing to look at him, “all those things, they came down to one thing, in the end. Because these are our vows, this is me making a promise to you, so this is what I’m promising. I love you. I will always love you, through—everything—and I’ll stand here at your side forever, and I’ll be yours, forever, and I love you. And…I’ll make those double-chocolate peanut-butter cookies you like, for your birthday. For all your birthdays.”  
  
And Michael found himself tumbling from teardrops into laughter, breathless, astonished, in awe.  
  
James smiled; blushed, a little, but didn’t glance down or away. Just kept looking at him, eyes all infinite blue, under the fire-opal rays of the setting sun.  
  
“I love you,” Michael told him, “so much. More than—more than anything. Ever. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do, for you. I can do anything, because of you, because you make me believe I can. I told you once that I’d be a superhero for you, if you wanted that. Still true. But that’s because you make me want to be one. You make me better, and you make me smile, and you make me fall more in love with you every single day. And I promise to spend all those days trying to make you smile, too. Every day, every night, every minute, I’ll be here for you, and I’ll love you through everything, too—oh, you did just say that, but I already had it written in mine, and you went first, so that’s not fair—anyway, everything. Good, bad, ordinary, spectacular. Always. You’re mine—you _are,_ you just said that too, and _yes_ , completely yes—and I’m yours and I love you.”  
  
Not the most coherent lines he’d ever delivered. But James was smiling, despite renewed damp tear-tracks, and gazing into his eyes, and the whole world was, for the space of that single minute, flawlessly bright.  
  
“Well,” Ian said, very gently, sounding suspiciously waterlogged, “I think it’s about time the two of you kissed, then. While I pronounce you very wonderfully married.”  
  
Married. Michael looked at James, inches away; prepared to lean down and touch their lips together, feather-light, no demands, not in public, not with all the emotions laid so raw and bare.  
  
James leaned in and up and kissed him, fiercely, devotedly, passionately. Like the sunlight. Like the crash and cheer of the waves, breaking over the sand with wild foam.  
  
The crowd cheered, too. Or maybe that was just his own heartbeat, pounding in time with the kiss; James pulled him closer, and Michael discovered that smile with lips and teeth and tongue, tasting sea and wind and salt air and absolute happiness, and he couldn’t’ve said who started laughing first, because they both were, together, too much emotion to keep inside.  
  
When they turned around to wave, at last, the gleam from the sunset caught in James’s hair and glowed like wood at the heart of a bonfire, and Michael’s breath snagged somewhere in his lungs, tangled up on the fishhook of his heart for just a second.  
  
He didn’t remember much of the exit, or the circling back for pictures, photo opportunities out on the sand. Their photographer’d been provided by the hotel, and she was quite nice; Michael wondered why she didn’t bother to tell him to smile more when she was reminding everyone else, and then realized he’d been smiling the entire time. His cheeks ached. And he didn’t care.  
  
He did watch James throughout the photo session, alert for any signs of fatigue, emotional or otherwise. He didn’t like the photographer’s assistant, he’d decided. The boy kept trying to put hands on James.  
  
In theory there was a reason for this—better lighting, camera angles—and James was tolerating the uninvited touches with good humor as far as Michael could see, but once or twice a hand had reached too abruptly for his face, and James _had_ flinched, at that. Too close to the memories.  
  
He’d glared, smile transforming into some _other_ tooth-filled expression for a split second. The boy gulped, backed off, and then took a picture of his own thumb in the confusion.  
  
James glanced up at him, leaned in under his arm; said “Sorry” to the boy out of the security of that shelter, even though it was clearly in no conceivable way his fault. Michael scowled. Didn’t say anything.  
  
“He’s only doing his job.”  
  
“His job shouldn’t involve touching you.”  
  
“I can be touched. I’m touchable. Grand entrance time, is it?”  
  
“You’re very touchable, yes. For me. No one else. Are you—”  
  
“If you ask me whether I’m all right, I’m going to push you into the next big wave. Lots of salt water. Very cold. Very wet.”  
  
“—hungry? Because we’re missing the hors d’oeuvres. I could bring you something. Also…” He waited until James raised eyebrows at him, expectantly. Then murmured, with his best lascivious leer, “…if you’re planning to get me all wet, I’m going to get you wet, too.” And watched with satisfaction as James dissolved into astonished laughter, far-off clouds banished from those eyes and replaced with the dancing reflection of emerging stars.  
  
The reception went by in a colorful blur, interrupted by vivid snapshot moments. Patrick’s announcement of them as husbands. The smile on James’s face at the word. The standing ovation when they appeared on the dance floor, and the cheers and whistles when the X-Men theme music billowed out from speakers. They didn’t do a proper first dance—James had said he could, but there’d been a second’s pause before the agreement, and Michael’d imagined all those eyes on the two of them for three or four or six minutes, and had compromised—but he did spin James into his arms dramatically and deliver a thorough kiss.  
  
After all, James had been the one to kiss _him_ , at the ceremony. This was _his_ turn.  
  
The applause was loud, and sustained. James was grinning hugely when Michael let him go, lips marked with the imprint of desire, possession emphatically asserted; despite the grin, directed at their guests, the eyes had gone smoky and soft around the edges, for precisely that same reason, that reminder.  
  
Good. He’d been trying.  
  
The kaleidoscope of the evening spun again, all coruscating silver lights and blue silk, lanterns and beachside tents at twilight and shimmering effervescent champagne. James let himself be pulled onto the dance floor by his sister, and then by Michael’s sister; laughing, Michael watched him go, and then got dragged that direction himself by Patrick and Ian.  
  
More champagne. Toasts, sincere and sentimental and occasionally embarrassing, from friends and family; Michael cast a longing look over at the open bar when Catherine began telling the story about his boyhood affection for his plush stuffed Ewok, but refrained. He wanted to be sober, wanted to remember every last magical sight and sound and taste of the night.  
  
Besides, James was looking utterly entertained, next to him. So the embarrassment never would matter. Not compared to that.  
  
More toasts. More cheers, and clinking of glasses, and applause when they kissed. Old-fashioned cake layers, brandy and lemon and sweetness and caramel, flavors that made blue eyes sparkle. James fed him first, neatly and gracefully, by hand; lowered those eyes, very briefly, while he did it, and Michael ran his tongue over sugary fingertips, tasting, and then closed teeth on that index finger, not really an assertion but enough that James could take it as one, if he chose.  
  
The deepwater blue glinted in appreciation, glancing up. And James didn’t kneel, not then, didn’t say sir to him in public, didn’t submit, so willingly, to command. But all that hung in the night anyway, unspoken, understood.  
  
Michael fed him very methodically, precisely, after that. His fingers, their wedding-cake, James’s splendid mouth. James accepted every bite Michael wanted to give him, and licked those lips, after Michael's fingers lifted away.  
  
He’d arranged for a coffee bar, near the end of the night. Gingerbread and cinnamon vanilla and blueberry. Hazelnut and coconut and sweet chai spice. James regarded this last surprise with Christmas-morning eyes, and then threw both arms around him and kissed him with lips that tasted of chocolate and holidays and cream.  
  
In the ensuing caffeine-appreciation rush, though, he did decide he needed at least one more actual drink, and wandered over to the bar. Requested a martini; approved, somewhere in the back of his head, of the technique, while watching the dance floor.  
  
James had ended up back on said dance floor, at the moment, this time with Michael’s mother. Both of them were radiant, flushed with excitement and exertion and the enchantment of the night. James had pushed up his sleeves and loosened his tie, and his hair was falling into his eyes, and he was listening intently to whatever Michael’s mother’d decided to tell him, nodding back. He laughed at whatever comment it’d been, and twirled her around, and then tipped his head to one side, said something else, let himself be teasingly swatted on the shoulder in reply. Easily, no strain in those movements, or in that smile. No pain, no fear, only obvious delight.  
  
Michael knew he was staring. Couldn’t look away.  
  
“He looks happy.”  
  
He jumped several inches in the air. Spun around to find the source of that unexpected voice. Nearly collided with the bar.  
  
James’s grandmother watched this comedy act, smirking; Michael wondered briefly whether she’d snuck up on him on purpose. He’d not be surprised.  
  
“He always should be.”  
  
She glanced at James. Then back at Michael. Snorted. “He would tell you he doesn’t deserve it.”  
  
“He’s wrong.”  
  
This got a grin. Michael’d seen a similarly amused expression on James’s face, on occasion. Somehow, under these circumstances, it was much less sexy, and slightly terrifying.  
  
“Of course he is. Glad you think so, too.”  
  
A pause, during which they both watched James start laughing at whatever Michael’s mother’d just murmured in his ear, and then grin and dip her over one arm, making her laugh, too.  
  
The scar on that wrist reflected silver, for a split second, under the lights. Neither of them, in motion, seemed to notice.  
  
“It was bad.” Not a question. A statement of fact.  
  
Michael, startled, tripped over words, stopped, started the question again. “It was—how much did he—he told you?” He hadn’t thought James’d told anyone exactly how bad.  
  
“Of course he didn’t.” A snort; Michael swallowed the urge to apologize. “But. It’s in his eyes. And that—” Obviously she’d seen that silver also. “In your eyes, too. When you look at him. Like you can’t believe he’s real.”  
  
“Sometimes I can’t,” Michael said, honestly, after a second. “I keep expecting to wake up. Thinking this has to be some kind of dream.”  
  
James’s grandmother considered this admission thoughtfully. “I could pinch you.”  
  
Michael contemplated several responses, and went with, “Sorry, that’s his job, later,” and she looked at him delightedly and then let out a peal of laughter, loud enough for nearby guests to turn and look.  
  
“I knew I liked you. You can stay.”  
  
“Thank you,” Michael said, wryly, which made her grin again.  
  
“You make him happy. I can see that, too. Written all over him.”  
  
“I…you know I’ll always try to make him happy.” Still honest. “Every day. Anything I can do. Because he—I never knew I could be this happy, either. With him.”  
  
“Huh. You know how lucky you are.”  
  
“I am.”  
  
“He’d probably say we’re wrong. That he’s lucky he met you.”  
  
“I…maybe?”  
  
“He’d be right, too.”  
  
Michael almost fell over again, out of sheer shock; this prompted James’s grandmother to laugh one more time. “Don’t look so shocked. I did say I liked you. Besides, you’ve got good taste in whiskey.”  
  
“Such a subtle family, you are,” Michael said, and got her another drink. She patted him on the shoulder, and they both watched James for a while, in companionable silence.  
  
The song ended; blue eyes flicked their way, spotting Michael even through the other heads, and then bounded over, enthusiastic and champagne-tipsy and excited. Michael reached out and collected both his hands, making the connection just because, and the excitement transmuted into something more private, quieter and deeper and intense, at the gesture.  
  
“So,” James said, eyes all warm and wide and bluer than the night sky above, “I love you.”  
  
“And I love you. Want to go have our wedding night?”  
  
James laughed. There wasn’t a shooting star overhead, but there should’ve been, Michael thought, a comet streaking white-hot through the dark at that sound. “Entirely yes. Should we say goodbye, or—”  
  
“You go on. I’ll say the goodbyes for you.”  
  
“Thank you,” James said, and hugged her; Michael caught her eye, echoing the gratitude, and saw the answering nod.  
  
“Right,” he said, and grabbed James’s hand, and they ran out of the reception laughing like truant children, hand in hand, under all the beachside stars.  
  
He’d not opted for the most expensive suite in the hotel—he’d seen pictures, and decided it felt overdone, glitzy and overeager—but this one was still in a fairly extravagant price range, complete with antique carved wooden furniture, unobtrusively updated modern conveniences, and, most importantly, a location up on the top floor, tucked away in a corner, with a view of the ocean and the moonlight and no other guests to intrude. James, who’d not seen it yet, walked in and stopped, looking around, eyebrows flying up.  
  
“This is…”  
  
“If you don’t like it we can— _do_ you like it?”  
  
“Honestly, you’re asking that?” James put the contemplation of ornate bedposts on hold to toss a smile up at him. “This is fantastic. Literally, mind you; I’m expecting a magical kingdom inside that wardrobe.”  
  
“Would you settle for your mermaids? There’re some carved into the headboard.”  
  
“There are? Oh—there _are_ , this is brilliant, how’d you ever find this place?”  
  
Michael sat down on the end of the bed, forgetting to answer. Watched James explore, peeking interestedly out at the waves, under the moonlight; running a hand over the curtains, delicate fabric flowing through his fingers like a pleased housecat, ribboning around the caress.  
  
James turned back around, and met his gaze, and smiled.  
  
And the impact of that smile went all the way through his heart.  
  
He’d always heard the adjective _heartwarming_ as metaphorical. It wasn’t. Felt like the liquid radiance of the moon, right there inside his body, sparked to life by the sun.  
  
James tipped his head to one side. Licked his lips. Michael caught himself licking his, too, especially when that smile got a little more heated, catching fire in return, and James took the few steps back across the room to stand in front of him, waiting.  
  
The night air crackled like hearth-coals, red-hued and glowing with secret promise.  
  
“Come here.” He slipped an arm around that tempting waist. Tugged James down onto his lap. “I want to ask you about something.”  
  
“Yes, sir?” So soon, Michael thought, somewhere between appreciation and apprehension and startlement; but then he didn’t bother protesting, as James discovered Michael’s ear with his teeth. Breath, hot and delicious, drifted along his skin, and made all the tiny hairs prickle.  
  
“No…I mean yes, do that again, but…I mean seriously. I wanted to ask you…” He shifted a leg, moved an arm, got James to pause and sit up and look at him. “What you said. Before. Before the ceremony. About being—that you couldn’t believe this, that you weren’t…allowed…to be this happy. Can you believe it? Now?”  
  
“Oh…” James licked his bottom lip, swiftly, caught in thought. Michael tracked the unconscious sweep of pink tongue, heart aching strangely in his chest.  
  
One long leg swung over him, adjusting position, settling down astride Michael’s hips. Sensual, unthinkingly so, and all the more eloquent for that reason: James wasn’t hesitating, wasn’t afraid to fit their bodies together in erotic lines and shapes and curves.  
  
James said, “Yes.”  
  
“You—yes? Just…yes?”  
  
“Yes.” James sounded as if he was laughing, though he wasn’t, quite; the emotion was there, though, lying audibly among the wind-hewn Scottish melody of that voice. “I’m not saying I’m suddenly perfect…”  
  
“You _are_.”  
  
“Thank you for that. I am saying, I think…well. We _did_ this. We have this. Nothing—no one stood up and took it away, or stopped me from finding you, or told me I didn’t deserve—we’re married and we got married in front of everyone and I do believe it, it completely happened, I love you. And I know I’m happy, because I _am_. We are. Ah…I assume you’re happy. Pretty sure you are.”  
  
Michael’s response was instant, and wholehearted, and just a touch blasphemous because he couldn’t hear that doubt for even a second longer, even if only teasingly so. James not-quite-laughed again, joy too vast and all-encompassing for laughter, but shining out in eyes, voice, the upward quirk of lips.  
  
“Good, then. So, now that we’ve get that sorted…I’ve got your present, finally. I wanted to have it for you this morning, but Kevin was running late. And I needed his help; he was picking this up for me.” James hopped off his lap, bounced across the room, found his discarded jacket. Michael followed, unwilling to let go of all the twinkling freckles even for an instant. “And you can stop looking nervous about that; it’s not going to bite.”  
  
“That’s what you think.” But he took the extended envelope anyway. Paused, not quite removing whatever James’d arranged to be put inside it. “You know you didn’t have to…I got to marry you. You asked me to marry you. And that was—you didn’t need to get me anything. Not today.”  
  
“Well…it’s kind of for both of us.” James pulled off his tie. Tossed it toward the pillows. Michael raised an eyebrow; James grinned in agreement, and then waved a hand at the envelope. “Go on.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which James's gift to Michael is revealed. Also there is finally wedding-night use of the bed...and James might be in need of some cuddling.

He opened it slowly. Not because he was genuinely worried about whatever Kevin might’ve orchestrated, but only out of some obscure need to make the moment last, drawn-out and exquisitely unrevealed.  
  
The envelope was very light. Not large at all.  
  
It contained, when he drew it out into the light, one very recognizable item.  
  
“This…is…a studio visitor parking permit?”  
  
“It’s sort of symbolic.” One more lip-lick, anticipatory, nervous, excited. “Because there’s more. I—you know, I did mention magical wardrobes, just now, that was entirely not on purpose, but it could’ve been, because, well. They’re finally moving ahead with the other Narnia movies…”  
  
“I heard…” He had. Hadn’t wanted to say.  
  
“So, um. Mr Tumnus is in the fifth one. They asked whether I’d do it. Come back.”  
  
“They asked whether—what did you—you didn’t say—”  
  
“I said yes. I could.”  
  
Michael stared at him.  
  
Wordless. No vocabulary at all. Just the complete white blankness of shock.  
  
“It’s only going to be a couple of days. As in two, or maybe three, days, pretty much a cameo, nothing big. And it’s all on a soundstage, not shooting on location or anything, and I really just have to put on the outfit and have conversations with people, so…”  
  
“You,” Michael said, and sank down, slowly, onto the edge of the bed. Thank god it was there; he might’ve fallen over, left on his own.  
  
James sat down beside him. Reached over, not taking the parking pass out of Michael’s loose grip, only adding his own hand. Those eyes, finding his, shone very clear. Sunlight through glass.  
  
“It’s symbolic because this is technically an old one, because they didn’t know when shooting was going to start exactly, or on which soundstage, so I had to sort of call around and ask for an extra, but I thought I should have something to actually give you, I’ll get you a proper new one once we start—”  
  
“I love you.”  
  
“Of course you do,” James said, “I’m amazing,” and Michael started crying, or maybe laughing, helplessly, looking down at the slip of plastic where it lay serenely in his hand. “Don’t do that,” James said, and leaned in and kissed him while Michael vainly tried to collect the tears with one hand, “you’re going to make me cry, too, and I already did that once, at the ceremony, so you’re winning right now and that’s not fair—”  
  
“I love you,” Michael said again, and flung both arms around him and toppled them over onto the bed. The pillows bounced, joyously. “I love you, and you _are_ amazing, and you—are you sure—no, of course you’re sure, you wouldn’t give me this if you weren’t—you know I’ll be there with you, right, the entire time if you want that—did I tell you I love you, because—”  
  
“You did, but you can say it again—” James sounded a bit watery also, but he was laughing through the emotion, so Michael rolled them over until he ended up on top, feeling every inch of that shorter muscular frame pinned beneath him. Kissed those welcoming lips until James ended up breathless and shivering.  
  
“—and I do want you with me. Kind of why I gave you this, you understand.”  
  
“Don’t be cheeky,” Michael informed him, and kissed him again for being so.  
  
“Yes, sir.”  
  
“You—James—so I’m married to a famous movie star, aren’t I? I love you—so I think it’s about time we—”  
  
“Love you. And I think you’re exaggerating, it’s one five-minute part in one film, at least for now, and I sort of got you a present that’s all about me, didn’t I…”  
  
“Everything I’ve ever wanted. Was that you interrupting me?”  
  
“Ah. It might’ve been, yes. Sir.”  
  
“Hmm.” He let the blue eyes escape from under him temporarily, mostly in order to promote the clothing-removal process as quickly as possible. And then, sitting up, tossing his own shirt across the room, he looked at James.  
  
James, who was carefully slipping out of shirt, suit-layers, underwear; revealing all the freckles, all the expanse of Scottish-pale skin, all the scars. Setting everything tidily to one side, then stepping back to the bed and getting on both knees, there between Michael’s legs, busy hands finding pants and buttons and briefs.  
  
James’s head was lowered, eyes focused on the task; he didn’t look up, didn’t pause or meet Michael’s gaze, and Michael’s “Wait” fell out before he’d even realized he’d been going to say it.  
  
  
Wait. The word, Irish-accented and faintly panicked, hovered between them. James, kneeling on the plush hotel carpet between his husband’s long legs, one hand still uselessly resting on a muscular thigh, a fold of fabric, heard it echo in his head, around the room, colliding with the walls.  
  
“No—” Michael sounded even more panicked, now. “No, I didn’t mean—oh, fuck, James, look at me, I love you. That didn’t come out right. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, please look at me, I’m asking you to, please.”  
  
He took a steadying breath. Then one more.  
  
Of course Michael wouldn’t mean anything cruel. It wasn’t a rejection. Would never be. He knew that. Understood it in his bones.  
  
Michael wanted him to look, and he wanted to. Equality. Eye contact. Simple.  
  
Nothing else. No other, more ominous, shadowy figure lurking behind him with vicious whip-leather in hand, waiting for him to presume too much, to overstep, to fail.  
  
Only himself, and Michael, and what they both wanted. On their wedding night.  
  
He breathed in one more time, and felt the cool dry rustle of the carpet-strands along his bare legs, and the luxurious weave of Michael’s suit crumpled under his hand; and then he lifted his head.  
  
“Wait, you said? Is something—is everything—”  
  
“Everything’s good.” Pale eyes met his, concern gathering like rainclouds over peat-moss beds. “I promise, James. We’re good. And…thank you.”  
  
“For what?”  
  
“You did look at me. Just now. Can I ask you something? Or…ask you for something?” Michael held out a hand, palm up; James set his own in it. Let himself be pulled to his feet, and then over to the bed. It was a little awkward—he wasn’t quite sure what Michael wanted, caught somewhere between falling under and resurfacing—but he was also not going to argue.  
  
“Of course you can, isn’t that the—”  
  
“No, I mean…I think…that’s not the point. Not right now.” Michael toyed with his captive hand. Used his own fingers to fold James’s up into a ball, then to stretch them back out, presented for examination and petting. James blinked.  
  
“It _is_ our wedding night,” Michael clarified, even while sounding uncertain, himself. “And you…you don’t have to do this. Not now. Not for me.”  
  
Oh. But that wasn’t right, either. He’d thought they were past that. A long time ago. “I’m not. We both—we’re both doing this, I thought. Together. Because we very much want to?”  
  
“We do. I do. But…maybe not this time?”  
  
In the pause, the soft amber lamplight scurried away and hid, in the canyons of the sheets, the scatter of discarded clothing, the towers of bedposts.  
  
“You don’t want to—you don’t want me to—”  
  
“I do want you. I want all of you. But not—not now. For the first time. Our first time, I mean. Being married. I just want…you.”  
  
One more pause. James sat there on the bed, naked, and Michael looked at him for a second, then transferred the unresisting fingers to the other hand, and put his newly available arm around James’s shoulders. Started to speak, stopped, shook his head. “Never mind. I’m sorry. You were being perfect. You can—we can do that. Everything we normally do, everything you want, all right? Do you need me to tell you to get back on your knees?”  
  
He leaned a shoulder into Michael’s warmth, under the arm. There wasn’t really anything to decide; Michael was asking for something, and it was something he could do. Something he could give. Comfort, he thought, for those springtime-river eyes, for all the regretful tension still emanating from each lean muscle.  
  
Michael’d just offered, for him, to pretend it’d not been said, to do everything they’d do on a normal night.  
  
This night was their wedding night. This particular night, this particular moment, would never come again.  
  
Maybe there was a decision to be made, after all.  
  
So he made it.  
  
“…the first time, you said? Feeling optimistic, are you?”  
  
“Feeling _realistic_. You know what looking at you does to me. You didn’t answer the question…”  
  
“No, I didn’t. You said you would want me, like this. What we were just doing, me on my knees and all that. Maybe…we can do that the second time? If you’re promising me at least twice?”  
  
“I…you…you would want…we’re still having sex?”  
  
Michael sounded dumbfounded enough that James had to laugh. “Yes, we absolutely are. Within the next five minutes, I’d hope. And…one more question? Maybe?”  
  
“Anything. Just ask.”  
  
“So…all right, if you want to, then…do you remember what I told you, ages ago? About special occasions?”  
  
And then he waited, while a succession of emotions chased themselves across Michael’s face. “James—”  
  
“Not—I do see what you mean, about just wanting this to be us, no roles or toys or anything, and yes, agreed—but if you want I could, um, do that. Be on top. Would you—”  
  
“…oh god.”  
  
“So…is that a yes? Or—”  
  
“James…” Michael shook his head, a disbelieving, incredulous little motion; tightened his grip. “You want to…Are you sure you can do this? I know I would love it if you—but you haven’t, you haven’t wanted to, not since—and not exactly often, before that. I know it’s not easy for you. So if you aren’t absolutely sure you want to—”  
  
“To make you happy? I think I can manage that.” He squeezed Michael’s fingers right back. That was all true, every single accurate word. “The first thing we should probably do is take your pants off, finally, they can keep my shirt company over there…”  
  
“Oh, god,” Michael said, one more time, and brought the hand to his lips and kissed it. “James. I love you.”  
  
“I love you,” James told him in reply, “now be naked, for me, please,” and watched those changeable eyes light up with jubilation, weightless and billowing and unrestrained.  
  
He’d not done this for a very long time; possibly too long, he thought, seeing the excitement in Michael’s face, in the rapid divestment of clothing, in the dive back onto the sheets. But he had been good at it, once. And he could be again, for Michael, for the sake of that excitement. Like riding a bicycle, he decided, amused, and started looking for their lube.  
  
“Other pocket, in that bag. Why’re you smiling?”  
  
“Am I?” The bottle jumped right into his hand. It was excited, too. “Did you honestly pack silk scarves?”  
  
“Um,” Michael said, “maybe,” and pushed himself half-upright, propped on both elbows. James paused, on the way back to the bed, to admire: long legs, tapered waist, shoulders that promised powerfulness without being overt about their strength.  
  
“You’re still smiling.”  
  
“You make me want to smile. You said you always would. In your vows. But you already do.”  
  
“I—”  
  
“Every day.” He perched next to Michael on the mattress, blankets flung back and beckoning. There was a lot of space; it was a large bed. Designed for pleasure.  
  
Pleasure, he thought, and shut his eyes for a split second—enough for one breath, stability, the sensation of air in and out of his lungs—then opened them again. Trailed one finger along Michael’s thigh.  
  
Michael, who’d had his mouth open to say something, went very quiet instead.  
  
James licked his lips, let the smile appear, visible and approving, still looking Michael up and down. Leisurely. Taking his time.  
  
It wasn’t the easiest mindset, not deep down in his heart, the uncertain dim shadowy place that needed acceptance, needed belonging-to-Michael like water flowing into thirsty ground; but he _did_ want Michael, that was undeniably true, and Michael wanted this.  
  
And was genuinely beautiful. James certainly had no problems appreciating that beauty. None at all.  
  
He let that appreciation be evident, now.  
  
Michael’s arousal was plain, muscles taut with desire, cock already iron-hard and arching up between his legs; under all the scrutiny that length twitched and jumped, uncontrolled demonstrations of need.  
  
“James—”  
  
He smiled again, and folded one leg into a more comfortable position, and got ready to have sex with his husband, on their fantastical bed.  
  
He couldn’t quite start there, with that tantalizing hardness, so he bent down for a kiss instead, lips and tongue and a hint of teeth because he knew that’d earn a groan, Michael opening that mouth for exploration, long-fingered hands sneaking up to tangle in his hair and pull him closer. They fit together exquisitely. They always had.  
  
He made a trail of scattered kisses, the wet imprints of his mouth, leading erratically down over Michael’s chest, that flat stomach, the soft skin at the crease of one hip because that specific spot tended to make Michael gasp. It did this time, too.  
  
“Good?”  
  
“You—you— _James_ —”  
  
“Very definitely still me, yes.” Hands again, he decided. He wanted to feel Michael’s skin, hot with need, under his fingertips.  
  
He studied Michael’s eyes, all hazy and dark with want, pupils all but devouring the mint-green lakes. Then, while those eyes were focusing on him, tapped fingers in measured rhythm, one-two-three, over the shaft of Michael’s heated cock.  
  
“Oh _god_ —”  
  
“You asked for this,” James informed him mildly, “and you really don’t have to worship me, you know,” and then closed his hand around the shaft and stroked, finding the right pace, the right angle, the amount of pressure that made Michael whimper and jerk hips up into his hand.  
  
“I think—maybe I do have to—”  
  
“What?”  
  
“You said I didn’t have to worship you…but I’m pretty sure I already do…”  
  
He let out a small huff of amused breath, at that; considered possible replies, while playing with the swollen head, the flushed length, the thick base. Michael whimpered again, when the second exploring hand found the low weight beneath his cock, and remained there, toying deliberately.  
  
“You like that? Or…we could go back to what I was doing before. Like this…”  
  
This time he made each stroke harder, faster, that little wrist motion that’d always prompted such excellent results; Michael groaned, and a drop or two of liquid pulsed out of the tip, wet and gleaming, but the orgasm didn’t follow, not quite.  
  
James glanced at those wide-blown eyes, and then leaned forward and licked that tip, collecting all those droplets of fluid, salty and sweet and hot. Dipped his tongue into the sensitive slit, for good measure; Michael choked out his name, sounding blissful, drunk on pleasure, desperate.  
  
“James, please—I want—I need—”  
  
“You want me to make you come?” He whispered the words against Michael’s cock, so that they brushed over sensitized skin like a caress, warm and slick. “Like this?”  
  
“Oh, fuck…”  
  
“That’s a yes, then? You want to get off in my hands, my mouth…” He licked the shaft of it one more time, base to tip, purposeful and unhurried. “On my face?”  
  
Michael was swearing incoherently in several languages; James laughed. Paused to find the lube again; spilled some over his fingers, between those long legs. Traced one fingertip around the base of that straining cock, then lower, where need was making Michael’s body throb with the just-out-of-reach orgasm, and lower still, to that enticing ring of muscle.  
  
Michael managed to say his name, between all the profanities. James glanced up, caught those eyes with his own, offered a fleeting glimpse of smile: we’re all right. We’re good. I love you. After a second, Michael nodded, an almost imperceptible movement, in acknowledgement, in reply.  
  
He eased that first finger inside, slowly.  
  
The muscles were tight, not used to this side of the act; the slickness helped, and so did Michael’s own shiver of arousal, legs falling further apart, body clearly asking for more. Asking verbally, too, words pouring out into the night.  
  
“James, please, that feels—oh, god, do that again, right there—oh, fuck, _fuck_ , James, I love you, I—”  
  
A second finger, very carefully, easing the entrance wider for him, open and tender and exposed. He watched his own hand. Said, in his head, to that aching space behind his heart, he could do this. He could do this without hurting Michael, without causing pain to all that trust, to the man he was so very much in love with. He _could_.  
  
Seemed to be working well so far, judging from the small panting sounds, the eyes gone clouded and wild with pleasure. Okay, then.  
  
“More? Or…is this…good?”  
  
“I…I don’t know—I mean this is good, this is fucking _fantastic_ , James, I can’t—words—more, yes, but only if you want, if you want to—”  
  
Still trying to protect him, even now. Still trying to ensure that James felt safe, that he felt cared for, that he felt loved.  
  
He did. All of those.  
  
“More, then. Would you…I asked you earlier whether you’d like to come from my hands, or my mouth, on you…would you like to come with me inside you? Do you want…me inside you?”  
  
“Oh _christ_ ,” Michael said, and those hips twitched, involuntarily, pushing up into his hand. “James, yes, _yes_ , please, please fuck me, and also keep talking, you have no idea how fucking _much_ that makes me want you, you saying that—those things to me—”  
  
“Oh,” James mused, “I might have some idea,” and slid his hand out and away—Michael whimpered—and then gathered unprotesting long legs and lifted them and fit himself right there and paused to kiss the inside of one thigh and then moved.  
  
Michael’d been panting softly, little gasps of air mixed with the occasional frustrated noise at the pauses. The noises stopped, at the first inexorable glide home.  
  
“Michael,” James whispered, waiting, not breathing.  
  
“—love you,” Michael whispered back, sounding dazed, eyes enormous. “James, are you—you—oh, god, you feel so—you’re _inside_ me,” and James actually laughed, out loud.  
  
He’d never imagined himself laughing, at this moment. He was poised there over Michael, inside Michael, feeling the hot slick clench of that body all around him, and Michael’d made him laugh.  
  
He wasn’t sure he could talk, so he turned his head, found Michael’s leg stretched up next to his shoulder, and kissed the nearest spot of skin, trying to say love with a breath, a gesture, an imprint of lips.  
  
“I love you,” Michael said again, and reached for him, hands settling on his arms, tightening fractionally, as if wanting to pull him closer but unsure. “James.”  
  
“I love you,” James told him, looking back at those eyes, “and I believe you were asking me to fuck you, just now, would you like to ask me again? I like you asking me.”  
  
Michael’s eyes went even wider. “Yes? I mean—yes, please. James. Please fuck me, James.”  
  
“Since you’re asking so politely….” He waited for just long enough to make Michael gasp and sob and squirm. Then leaned down and breathed, “Yes,” over parted lips.  
  
And then he moved. Michael gasped again, trembled, moved with him, hips lifting; it took a minute to find the proper rhythm, meeting and thrusting and coming together, but once they did it was _right_ , suddenly, no longer conscious thought, only the two of them rocking into each other, bare skin and sweat and piercing sweetness and white heat.  
  
He could feel the orgasm building, rushing up through his veins like the coil before lightning, electric and pure; Michael was saying his name, over and over, a chant, an incantation, a magic spell, and James slid one hand between their bodies and wrapped it around Michael’s cock, rigid length slipping through the curve of slippery fingers, and Michael actually _shouted_ his name, tensing everywhere, each muscle drawing tight with it, liquid heat erupting over his hand. And James forgot how to make any sound at all, as the storm broke around him too.  
  
Some very long time later, he lifted his head from a shoulder, sticky with drying sweat and damp hair. “You…are you…all right?”  
  
“Me…” Michael somehow found a spare hand, twined it into his hair, pressed his head back down. “Christ, James.”  
  
“Not an answer…”  
  
“I’m spectacular. I’m…I don’t even know. No words. I feel…” The other hand flopped weakly against the bed. “I love you. I feel wonderful, and I feel very tired, and I feel like I love you. But, James…”  
  
“Hmm…? Also, good.”  
  
“You asked me whether I was all right. Are—are you?” The hand in his hair held on a bit more fiercely. “Was that…all right?”  
  
“Oh…” He’d been not thinking about it, not precisely on purpose; Michael’s shoulder was supportive, and the night was quiet, and the afterglow lingered, weary comfortable peacefulness throughout his body. He’d not wanted to have to think about anything, just then.  
  
“I don’t know. Yet.”  
  
“What? Are you—that was too much, wasn’t it, I shouldn’t’ve asked—what can I do?”  
  
“No, stop.” He made himself as heavy as possible, while Michael frantically tried to sit up. Kept them both in place. “I meant exactly what I said. I’m happy. Extremely happy, right now. And this…this was magnificent. We’re magnificent. And I love you. All right?”  
  
“But—”  
  
“I know. Just…” Hard to explain, even to himself; he watched the lines of the ceiling for a while, idly following insets and crown molding and corners with his eyes. The shakiness was there, waiting; but he could keep the earthquake at bay a while longer, safe in strong arms. “I don’t want to feel that, yet. Too good for that. And it was. Good, I mean. Doing this for you…”  
  
“For me.” Comprehension, in that echo; well, then, at least one of them understood. James mentally shrugged, setting that worry aside someplace distant and unobtrusive for a while, and repositioned a leg, draping it across Michael’s knee. Michael sighed. “You did say good…”  
  
“I did.”  
  
“I love you.”  
  
“I know. You said you were tired…”  
  
“You…wore me out. James—”  
  
“Not for the entire night, I hope.” He poked at a slender hipbone, lightly. “I might have uses for you later.”  
  
“Oh, you might…” Michael’s hand snuck over and caught his, stopping the tickling, but fondly. “You astonish me. Every single fucking day. Give me twenty minutes, then.”  
  
“So _long_ ,” James said, curious, and then yawned.  
  
“I knew you were tired, too. Come here.”  
  
“Every single _fucking_ day, was it? I commend your choice of adjectives…”  
  
“Technically that’s a gerund. Go to sleep.”  
  
“Oh, it’s on my behalf, is it?”  
  
Because he _was_ all at once exhausted, the thrill of orgasm and the shoved-away emotions and the demands of the day leaping up to pounce simultaneously and drag him down, the room warm and well-defended and the shoulder an excellent pillow, he only barely heard Michael’s quietly definite, “Yes.”  
  
But he did hear it. And the heat of it spread out like sweet molten honey, and enveloped his bones, as he shut his eyes.  
  
He woke up feeling safe and cherished and secure; at the same time, inexplicably, off-balance, with the awkward sensation of having slept too long in an unfamiliar place, of having fallen asleep on their wedding night, of needing comfort on said wedding night even though the sex’d just been marvelous, incandescent, unparalleled.  
  
Michael’d remained awake, he realized, the entire time; lips gently brushed his eyebrow and long-fingered hands kneaded his back, and the welcome was meant to be reassuring, and it _was_ , and he hated himself a little in that instant.  
  
Michael must’ve noticed; the hands stopped tracing random shapes over his skin. “James? Waking up?”  
  
He wasn’t going to cry. He wasn’t. Not now.  
  
He thought about Michael’s hands, instead. About the way those eloquent fingers had gripped his waist, dug into his hips, spasmed ecstatically at the moment of climax.  
  
The moment when James had been inside him, opening him up and making him vulnerable, pushing him over the brink.  
  
It wasn’t a bad memory, not at all. That very lack of hurt and fear and darkness left him unmoored, the shakiness he’d been pushing away now returning full force. And the unnerving _absence_ of panic, of any comprehensible reaction, spun suddenly towards panic, itself; a paradox, he thought. Gallows humor, at the end of a rope.  
  
The bed was very soft, supporting him with all its might; the sheets cuddled concernedly around his legs. It’s all right, he wanted to tell the bedding. Don’t fret. I’m all right.  
  
That, of course, was more or less the problem. He _was_ all right. More so than he’d ever been, even before. And that was so unexpected that he could only lie there frozen, shocked at his own recovery.  
  
Michael was murmuring his name, apprehensive now; had quite possibly been talking to him for some time, while he’d been turning thoughts around inside his head.  
  
He started to answer; stopped, words piling up over old ridges and dry scars in that second, the second in which anyone else might clear a throat, cough to open sleep-fuzzy airways.  
  
He could do that too, of course. The discomfort’d be momentary. But Michael was already in motion, swinging legs out of the bed.  
  
“Here. I packed some of ours—I know you’re not picky about brands, or bottled water, even, you’d drink the tap water, but I just wanted to…well, anyway, these came from home.”  
  
Michael came back to the side of the bed, all concerned springtime eyes and unselfconscious nudity, and handed him the familiarly-labeled water, and their fingers met; the flare of warmth burst all the way up his spine, and all at once that was too much, all that love and tenderness and care, and the tremors turned themselves into earthquakes, inside his bones.  
  
The water hit the bed, and he thought vaguely, oh thank god it wasn’t open yet, and then Michael’s arms were around his shoulders, firm and protective and possessive and anxious.  
  
“James,” Michael was saying, beloved voice like music, Irish harpsongs and cozy emerald days, “James, it’s all right, it’s all right, you’re fine, you’re safe, I’m here,” and James collapsed into the embrace and breathed, deep wracking breaths from down inside his soul, not quite sobs but near.  
  
“Shh.” One solid hand rubbed along his back, eloquent presence over naked skin. No scars there for hands to catch on, James thought, and shivered, mutely, everywhere.  
  
“You can cry if you want to, it’s fine, I’m here, I’ll hold you. I love you. Don’t—don’t not cry, if you need to, because you think you shouldn’t—don’t hide from me, all right? I’m not going anywhere, James, I swear. You married me, you’ve got me forever, now, no getting out of that one…”  
  
“I know,” he tried to say, because he did. Couldn’t get the words out, and that hurt even more, but Michael kept holding him, and somehow that made the hurt better, cool sweet relief over a painful burn, soothing and easing the ache. Not washing it away, not entirely, but cleansing, refreshing, paving the way for scorched and frightened flesh to heal.  
  
The lights were on, all around the room. They splashed clear light and stray shadows through the world, artificial and human-made and kind.  
  
Michael kept one arm around him, opened the water with the other hand, offered the bottle again. Those expressive fingers shook, barely noticeable, with the gesture.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is some comforting, and quite a lot of sex. Michael's good at being what James needs.

The first swallow helped. The second one helped even more. The heaped-up scratchinesses dissolved themselves, and were washed away.  
  
He breathed, head on Michael’s shoulder, “Thank you.”  
  
“Don’t—you never have to thank me for—are you all right? No, sorry, ridiculous question, of course you’re not—but is this better?” The arm around him hadn’t relaxed in the slightest.  
  
“Yes.” He closed his eyes, for a second; opened them again, seeking Michael’s. “About the crying. I wasn’t—I’m not hiding anything from you. I just couldn’t…I only needed to breathe. I love you.”  
  
“And I love you.” Michael started to lean in for a kiss, in the wake of that declaration; hesitated, millimeters away, unsure.  
  
“You can,” James said carefully, and trailed fingertips over Michael’s cheek, up to his hair, long at the moment and beginning to curl. “I do enjoy you kissing me.”  
  
“I enjoy kissing you.” Michael brushed their lips together, lightly; rested his head against James’s after. “Was that…because of earlier? What you—we—did?”  
  
“Ah…yes and no.” Another sip of water; when he went to set it aside on the closest table, Michael’s expression changed.  
  
“Are you—”  
  
“I’m done, for now. But that was enough. Thank you.” You were enough, he meant. You always are.  
  
Maybe Michael heard the unspoken half of that sentence, because he sighed, and dropped a kiss on the tip of James’s nose. James went cross-eyed trying to watch; Michael not-quite-laughed. “I’m only trying to make sure, love.”  
  
“We’ve got pet names now? Though I kind of like that one, you can use it. I’m sorry, honestly. I was…surprised. That’s all.”  
  
“That didn’t look like surprise…”  
  
“It was, though.” He nudged a shoulder into Michael’s ribs, got them both to tip back over, sprawling haphazardly across the bed. Michael felt a bit less forlorn, in that position, lying closely pressed against him in the messy topography of shared sheets and pillows. “I just thought…I woke up and I thought…I should feel worse. Different. More traumatized, or possibly more liberated, or…I don’t know. Something. I didn’t. So I was surprised.”  
  
“I’m glad you’re not feeling traumatized,” Michael said, after a second, into his hair. “But…”  
  
“I…only feel like me.”  
  
And Michael said, very softly, “Oh,” and “James,” and, “I love you.” And held him, bodies and heartbeats settling into each other, in the star-strewn depths of the night.  
  
  
James was letting himself be held. Had stopped breathing in that awful irregular way, gulps of frantic air, wounded sounds that bit into Michael’s soul. Had been the one to ease them both back into the pillows, where they were now, inseparable. Thank god. Thank everything.  
  
Michael lay there with his arms around all that compact warmth, and shut his eyes. Tried to be soothing, and to be soothed; tried to think. His body ached, that splendid thrumming that came with extraordinary release, unaccustomed delicious stretching and fullness and exertion. It’d been beautiful, and he wanted to do it all again, to feel James inside him, that liquid heat at that moment, again…  
  
James had looked so _shaken_.  
  
He opened his eyes, and his mouth. James, reading his mind for the millionth time, said, before he could get words out, “It’s all right. We can.”  
  
“…what?”  
  
“We can do that more often. Not every time, but maybe sometimes.”  
  
“Or we can not. You looked…I’m so sorry.” He’d not exactly apologized, yet. Only understood now how badly he needed to.  
  
“No, I mean it.” James smiled up at him, not moving, offering sincerity like the heartbeat of the sun. “Really only the…being startled, this time. You can ask me for that. It might help if you ask; I might not think of it, on my own. But it was good. It’ll be good again. And I love you.”  
  
“I love you.” No good words. “And you…you’re sure? You don’t have to. You never have to.” Never. Nothing James didn’t want, didn’t choose.  
  
James put out a hand, decorated with freckles like celebratory confetti, cinnamon and sugar. Cupped Michael’s cheek with gentle fingers. And all at once the night felt clearer. Brighter.  
  
A celebration, he thought again. And it _was_.  
  
“Yes. I am.” Oh. Right. He’d asked a question; James was answering. Truthful as the moonbeams, beyond the curtains, in the sky. “Maybe not now, though. Now I might want…well, you know what I’m going to want. If you’d not mind.”  
  
Still no good words; but he didn’t need them. They had other languages. Shared vocabularies.  
  
Affirmation, James had said once. Submission and command. Gift and acceptance.  
  
He found that sturdy freckled wrist, the one with the scar, with his own hand. Wrapped his fingers around it. Squeezed.  
  
James inhaled sharply, and then practically melted into him, or would’ve if they’d not already been lying down. “ _Yes_ that…”  
  
“Yes, then. I did promise. And you do enjoy me…following through. On those promises.”  
  
He heard the smile in that crumpled-velvet voice, when James said, “Yes, sir.”  
  
“Not quite yet, though. Just…give me a minute, all right? To hold you?”  
  
“Absolutely yes.”  
  
The stillness spread out around them, in the lamplit mellow oasis of their hotel room. Swept over wardrobe doors, wooden bedposts, complacent carpet, and pulled them all into peace. Like a dream of the world, weightless and hovering in the infinite boundless space before flight.  
  
He’d wondered about dreams, he recalled, the sun-drenched morning that seemed like decades ago. He ran a hand through James’s hair. Took a breath, and asked the question now.  
  
Ocean-sapphire eyes blinked in surprise; but after a second James tucked the surprise and the smile away, someplace private and full of reflection. Said, “Gloves, yesterday. About looking for a missing one. Found it, too; it was under your pillow.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Mmm. My subconscious knows you’re my other half. I think it’s just memory, honestly. I lose gloves all the time, you know that…”  
  
“And I buy you new ones. All the time.”  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
“I like buying gloves for you.” He hooked a foot over James’s ankle, tracing memorized constellations of red and gold with a toe. “Is it always clothing, then?”  
  
“I think last week there was something about peanut butter. Michael?”  
  
“Love you.”  
  
“Love you. I am happy. You know that. I know it too. You asked me, a while ago, what I was thinking. When I…” That gesture again, hand lifting to the elegant line of James’s throat. “I didn’t tell you, then, because I’d only just had the idea, and I was still working out how I felt…”  
  
“Are you…do you want to tell me now?” Around them, the bedposts, the whimsical headboard, the voiceless pillowcases, were holding their collective breath too.  
  
“I think I could show you,” James said, and wiggled the feet until Michael gave in and let him escape. “Be right back…”  
  
“What—”  
  
“This.” James returned to the bed, sat down—more accurately, knelt, legs folded up beneath him on the stoic mattress—and held out a hand.  
  
“Oh,” Michael said, utterly paralyzed. “Oh.” The collar, the one he’d bought for James in another lifetime, lay across that beloved palm, all dark alluring leather.  
  
“You did say we could have this, tonight. At least twice, you said.”  
  
“You—you—I didn’t—we can do…some things, yes, of course, but this…” Just talking. Words spilling out into the night. He couldn’t think.  
  
James stayed put, as if this were all perfectly ordinary, on his knees with collar in hand while Michael lay there and forgot how to breathe. He’d not even moved, because James had astounded him, had gotten up while Michael’d remained flopped across the bed and propped up on a single elbow to watch.  
  
Those extraordinary eyes were calm, when he looked into them. Deep kind pools of blue, no storms to ruffle the waters.  
  
“But,” he said again, “but you can’t, can you, I thought—you asked me, that first time, for—no gags, or anything that—this might hurt you—”  
  
“Michael,” James said patiently, “I wear neckties.”  
  
And for some reason that statement, the incongruity of the words and the emotion, the ridiculous normality of it all, the inescapable persuasiveness of that simple argument—of course, of course James was all right, James was _right_ —cracked all the tension like discarded glass, collapsing at last under its own weight into a million harmless pieces.  
  
Michael found himself laughing, inadvertently, probably a bit hysterically, but James was laughing along, so that was all right too. Everything was all right.  
  
“You do, you were, for the ceremony, of course you were—”  
  
“The ceremony in which I promised to be yours—again—if you recall, yes—”  
  
“You want me to put this back on you—”  
  
“Why I packed it when you weren’t looking, you know.” James grinned at him, eyes all sapphire impishness; Michael sat up and yanked the galaxy of freckles down beside him, on the bed. Plucked the collar out of James’s open hand.  
  
“You want to be mine, again? All of you, even this? You want the reminder?”  
  
“Very much yes, sir.”  
  
Michael looked into his eyes. Then at the collar. Then back at James. Who was smiling.  
  
No rainclouds. Not anywhere. No room for them, in all that blue. Not here in this hotel room, on their wedding night.  
  
The storms would come from time to time; he knew enough to know that. He’d never mind when they did; he’d be there as shelter during the rain. Not because James was fragile and in need of aid. Because James was strong enough to take the aid, when offered.  
  
And they’d have this, for all those other less tempest-driven nights. He got to have this, with James, right now; he got to be married to James, and see that smile forever. He got to be what James needed, the person who could give James what he needed, always.  
  
So lucky. So damned fortunate, and grateful. Always.  
  
So he should probably get around to demonstrating that gratitude. James was waiting.  
  
“I asked you earlier if you needed me to tell you to get on your knees. Do I…need to tell you? To get on your knees for me?”  
  
A blink, a shooting-star smile; and James was on the floor, kneeling over opulent carpet-fluff between Michael’s legs. Naked. Lovely. Looking up at him, framed by Michael’s own limbs, and joyfully happily consenting to be there.  
  
“You look perfect,” he said, because it was true.  
  
James actually blushed, but didn’t argue. And didn’t look away, or lower that gaze. Just kept watching his eyes. Steady gladness, rich and vital and vibrant as a pulsebeat, blossomed there, and warmed Michael’s chest, from the inside.  
  
He stretched out a hand, the one not holding the collar. Rested fingers over James’s temple, finding that same beat of pulse beneath delicate skin. Felt it speed up at his touch.  
  
James shut his eyes, breathed, tipped his head into Michael’s hand, an infinitesimal plea. Michael let himself smile, at that. He couldn’t do this without smiling, in any case, with James.  
  
“Do you want me to—no, hang on, sorry. Look at me, first.” He waited; James obeyed, reassuringly prompt.  
  
“Good.” As a reward, he trailed the back of his hand over a flushed cheek; heard the indrawn breath, saw the eyes lose a bit of focus, drifting. “James?”  
  
“Yes, sir…”  
  
He leaned in a bit closer. Had to get the wording right. “Do you want me to put this on you? Would you like me to…collar you, love?”  
  
James gasped out loud, as the words registered. Off-balance, a little; he’d expected that, though, from the combination of words, that question, the pet name. He caught that pointed chin with fingertips, held James in place, eyes on his. James trembled.  
  
“Answer me, please.”  
  
“Yes…” In that spiced-whiskey accent, even more enticingly textured now, plushness spiked with dark-edged simmering desire. “Yes, sir.”  
  
“Then yes. Tell me how you’re feeling. While I put this on you.”  
  
He inched forward more, to make the gesture less awkward, keeping James tucked between his legs. James reached up and lifted stray waves of hair out of the way; bent his head for Michael’s hands. “That…”  
  
“Good?” James _had_ lost weight, but he only fastened it one hole smaller. No chances of injury. Not ever. “Talk to me. Orders, love.”  
  
“I…can I move? Possibly?”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
James breathed, in and out; after a second of newfound stability, back on dry land for the time being, tested the fit with exploratory fingers. “Good. Though you could…oh, no, I know why you wouldn’t. This is fine. Sorry about sort of…springing this on you, though. I’d been thinking about it for so long that I kind of forgot you didn’t know.”  
  
Michael shook his head, said, “James, you’re fantastic,” and set his hand over the leather, where it was conspiratorially warming up, nestled in place where it belonged. Felt the consequent swallow. “Really all right, though? And you’ll tell me, if you’re not.”  
  
“Yes, sir. And yes, I will. But it’s not…I also told you once that I’ve not worn a collar for anyone else. This is only for you. For us. You putting this on me…” James put his own hand over Michael’s, briefly, then looked excitedly thoughtful, and put both hands behind his back, the position Michael’d asked him to assume, the first time they’d tried it all anew. “It’s still you, putting this on me. And I want that. I like your hands on me, sir.”  
  
“Yes…I know you do.” He could see at a glance exactly how much. Could feel it, too, when he leaned down and ran a hand up one thigh and over to James’s cock, standing upright and flushed and needing his touch, there in the nest of dark curls. James made a small hungry sound; shivered, but managed not to push forward into the caress, despite plainly wanting more.  
  
“Rules, James. No moving. But I know you know that; you’re being good, already…”  
  
The praise earned a tiny gasp; when Michael checked, the blue eyes had gone wide, dark and dreamy with desire. Quick, he thought; but then he himself was painfully hard and equally desperate, and probably neither of them was going to last all that long. James’s fault, he thought, happily. The things James did for him.  
  
“But you did apologize to me, just now. For the surprise.” He lifted the hand away, rested it on a hip.  
  
“I…yes?”  
  
“Forgiven. But, if you’d like…if you want that…I could spank you. What we did the very first time, the first time you ever offered this to me. In my hotel room, with you bent over the bed, my hand on your skin…”  
  
“Oh god…” James was breathing rapidly, and that tongue came out to swipe wetness over pink lips again. Too pink; he must’ve been biting them. Michael considered this revelation, then rested his thumb on that enticing spot. “Suck.”  
  
Another small sound, wordless need, and James opened his mouth and let Michael’s finger invade, tongue swirling and licking over the blunt shape, lips wet and warm where they closed over skin, when James sucked at him, nibbling greedily, more than commanded but Michael wasn’t about to object.  
  
He did say, “Eyes open,” when they began to slip shut, blue vanishing behind a forest of dark lashes; James trembled a little, but looked up. “Good,” Michael told him again, because it was. He knew how difficult that one could be, with James this far under, this fast. And he loved witnessing the fall into that timeless space, he truly did, seeing James stop worrying and doubting, simply trusting him, surrender that was elemental and all-encompassing and complete.  
  
But this _was_ fast, and this was James wearing his collar, quivering at each breathless glancing encounter of bodies, and he needed to do this with care.  
  
He slid his thumb out of that eager mouth, making sure to drag it over James’s lower lip, leaving wetness behind. James whimpered, and an echo of that wetness beaded up over the head of his cock, straining for attention; Michael smiled.  
  
“You remember that, don’t you, James? I held you down, because you said you liked it when I did, and I gave you orders, and you listened…I’d never felt anything like that before. The way I felt, looking at you. That you would give me this, all of you, like this…” He’d been humbled. In awe. And incredibly, unbelievably, brilliantly aroused, whole body inundated with want and yes and need.  
  
The same way he felt now.  
  
The clean curved gold of his wedding ring shone up at him, from his finger.  
  
He couldn’t see James’s matching ring, with those hands behind his back. But he knew it was there.  
  
“That was a question. Tell me you remember that night. Tell me how you felt, if you can.” As an afterthought, he added, “Come here, first. I mean stand up.”  
  
Those lips started to form a word, a question; James must’ve decided against inquiring, though. Only got to his feet, that same arresting eager grace that’d always drawn Michael’s eye, that drew every eye in a room to him, every time.  
  
James was here, in this room, with him. Had chosen, was choosing, every day, to be with him.  
  
Was standing there as instructed, taller than him for once, eyes full of faith even though this couldn’t be easy, this reversal, being on his feet while Michael stayed sitting on the bed.  
  
“I love you,” he said, and then put both hands on those intoxicating hips, thinner than they’d once been but healthy now, filled out from months of eating properly, dinners and breakfasts and desserts prepared together, hands and eyes meeting, laughing, entwining. He made the grip a firm one. His hands, staking his claim to that body. Letting James know to whom he belonged.  
  
James blinked. Slightly too fast. Needing an anchor. Needing more.  
  
So he said again, “Come here,” and got James into his lap, cuddled up against him, connected in as many places as possible, skin to skin. Kissed him, quick and inarguable, and found a decidedly interested nipple, and played with it until James moaned, lax and compliant in his arms.  
  
Then he observed, “I did ask you to do something, love.”  
  
James opened his mouth, but no words came out, at least not right away.  
  
“How you felt, that first time. Tell me. When you can.”  
  
“I…yes, sir…I was…excited. Surprised…I’d not expected that, with you. It’s not…I hadn’t…wanted anyone that way for a long time…”  
  
“You wanted me.”  
  
“Yes, sir.”  
  
“You wanted to be mine. To be…good, for me. To have me claim you. Right?”  
  
“Yes,” James whispered, eyelashes flickering again, but he looked up, after, so Michael let it go. “Yes, I did, I wanted…”  
  
“Say it.”  
  
“I…wanted to be yours. To let you tie me up, or down, to spank me, to make me scream…I wanted to belong to you. And know it. Sir, please…”  
  
“Please what?” He drew a circle around the base of James’s cock, so thick and ready, with the thumb that’d been in that kiss-bruised mouth, earlier, and remained lingeringly wet even now. James gave a tiny broken cry; another droplet of fluid pulsed out from the tip, and Michael swiped the thumb across it, collecting, spreading. “Do you want me to do all of that now?”  
  
“Yes…yes, please, anything, _please_ —” Begging, now. Nearly inarticulate. Excellent.  
  
He put his free hand on James’s back and nudged; James got the direction almost instantly, and flowed into the new position, graceful and abrupt all at once, as if he’d somehow just spontaneously ended up face-down over Michael’s lap, no effort required.  
  
The dark leather of the collar winked at him, from the back of that neck, under all the hair.  
  
He wouldn’t ask James to count. That splendid voice already sounded too uneven. No stress. No extra exertion. Besides, when he looped a finger around the collar and used it to tip that head towards him, James sighed and went very still, not out of refusal but out of acquiescence. “Still fine?”  
  
A nod; beyond words, then. Almost, he thought. Nearly there. He could feel it, in the acceptance, the yielding, the change in breathing from swift and expectant to slower and rhythmic. Tranquility in the anticipation, the serenity of waves breaking steadily against white sand.  
  
“Ten,” he said, “only ten, that’s all, and you don’t need to count. I don’t think I want you to count. You’ll just have to trust me to tell you when we’re done. To take everything, for me. Can you do that, James?”  
  
Another tiny gasp; James shivered, lying obediently over his lap, at the words. And then nodded, hair sweeping along the sheets, dark silk over white linen.  
  
“Good. You don’t need to be quiet, either, though. I want to hear you. And you can move, I want you to move, if you need to, I love you, you know I love you.” And he stroked his hand along James’s back, down to his hip, one uninterrupted caress.  
  
James, evidently, was happy about that permission, because he took prompt advantage of it, stretching in the wake of the petting, cock pushing into Michael’s thigh, and then again, with a soft sound of pleasure.  
  
“Oh, really,” Michael said, amused, and shifted that leg upwards the next time James moved, so that the friction, the pressure, would be even more of a satisfying torment. James gasped, into the sheets.  
  
“I did say you could. I never said I wouldn’t.”  
  
James tipped his head to the side, just enough to grin at him, through a tumble of irrepressible hair. Then wriggled again. Pointedly.  
  
“All right, then, if you’re asking…” He set his hand on the delicious curve of that backside, offered up to him. Kneaded, first, a bit too hard to be a massage, proprietary. Felt muscles loosen, languid and accommodating, prepared.  
  
And then they began.  
  
The first snap of impact, his hand on James’s skin, burst through the room like a thunderclap. Like the joyous explosion of life-giving rain.  
  
He paused for a second, just to listen. It’d been a very long drought, after all.  
  
James had asked, though—James _had_ asked, and that knowledge danced all through his veins, lighting new fires of possessive want and delight and _yes_ under his skin with each heartbeat—and Michael could never say no, would never say no, to James asking. So he couldn’t really pause for long.  
  
Two and three were a bit faster, closer together; he was trying to make them unpredictable, in part, and also truthfully just couldn’t wait. His hands, his handprints. On James’s skin.  
  
The freckles were being slowly swallowed up by pink, and then, eventually, stains of red, after four and five, harder because James was moaning softly, continuously, and actually lifted those hips to beg for more. The marks, and sounds, of ownership. Of James being Michael’s, wanting to be, freely, consensually, ecstatically so.  
  
He played with location, a bit, making the next two lower, near the spot where those long legs, endearingly attractive on someone that short otherwise, met already reddened curves. James whimpered; Michael stopped to trail fingers over the back of his neck, just below the dark streak of the collar, and whispered, “Good, you’re doing so well, you’re beautiful,” and James sighed and relaxed into the reassurance, verbal and physical.  
  
“Good,” Michael told him one more time, just to make sure the word sunk in. Then went back to what they’d been doing. Went back to making James sob his name, fingers curled into the bedsheets, under the spanking.  
  
He’d asked James to not be quiet, to not hold back. James was plainly listening.  
  
Michael was listening as well. So was his cock, awake again and rather demandingly so. James could probably feel all that arousal, though whether or not he’d be processing, at this point, Michael couldn’t tell.  
  
He tugged James’s legs further apart. Centered the next impact. James didn’t _exactly_ scream.  
  
“Love,” Michael said, and bent down to check; and the blue eyes opened slowly, far-off and dark as twilight over the ocean, but that was still a smile. “Still good?”  
  
The tiniest of nods; a small lip-lick, failing to do anything about the wayward strand of hair caught in the corner of that mouth. Michael stroked it away, and James trembled, and turned his head, and pressed lips to Michael’s fingers, wet and openmouthed and uninhibited.  
  
One more, same spot, leaving skin gorgeously hot to his touch, leaving James limp and malleable under his hands; he coaxed James off his lap and onto the bed, after, and then settled beside him, making sure they were touching all over, bodies aligned.  
  
James shivered, peeked at him, eyes asking, as coherently as they could through the bewilderment of euphoria and need and unexpected cessation; Michael rested one hand over stinging flesh, the cool gold of the ring catching all the heat, and pulled him even closer, and breathed into one ear, “Ten, that’s all, you’re done, you were good, so good, James, for me, that was amazing, I love you, you’re mine and I love you,” and then watched, awestruck, because that _was_ enough: James breathed out, shuddered once, and the eyes stopped inquiring, drifting under on the waves of the praise. Not coherent at all, now; into that other space where Michael couldn’t follow, someplace fantastical and floating, unbounded rolling oceans of bliss. Equally infinite trust.  
  
And Michael found himself unexpectedly on the verge of tears. He’d never imagined this. Had never even dared to hope they’d end up here, this depth of capitulation, this all-encompassing surrender, this passionate faith in him. Even when they’d made those vows to each other, wholehearted and discovering both roles anew, he’d not counted this among all the possible possibilities.  
  
James, obviously, had. Was more courageous than Michael’d ever known.  
  
He couldn’t talk, because that would lead to the lurking tears, and James needed him to be in control. And he wanted to be in control, for James. For them both.  
  
He couldn’t follow where James was, but he could see it from here, because James let him see: the soft breaths, the quivering movements, uncalculated now, spontaneous washes of pleasure, head to toe. And he could be there, too, as an anchor, a tether, the kite-string, unfurling for flight, and equally there to pull James back down to earth in the aftermath.  
  
Even here, they were together. They’d always be together.  
  
He sat up; James made a sound, plaintive, wordless. “Shh,” Michael told him, and stroked a hand over his chest, over the faint fading streaks of old scars. They’d blurred around the edges with time, but would never go away, not entirely. Stories of survival, he thought. More than that. Triumph.  
  
When he slid fingers, shining with lube—raspberry-flavored, because James liked raspberries, and the scent and taste might somehow find a way into all that delirious ecstasy, amid all the other sensations—between the scars along those thighs, James exhaled, and let his legs fall apart, over the bed.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Michael takes his role very seriously, James appreciates this fact, happy endings and delicious coffee exist, and this whole epic story comes, pun intended, to a close. More or less. For now.

He traced the outline of that invitingly tight space with one finger, but didn’t push. Yet. “James?”  
  
Another breath of sound; but it might’ve been unconnected to the question, simple reaction to the impression of words in the air.  
  
“You can hear me, can’t you? My voice?”  
  
A blink, this time. Michael wasn’t certain what that was supposed to mean. “James,” he tried. “I need you to tell me. At least—nod, please, if you can hear me?”  
  
James blinked again, eyes refocusing enough to find his. Then smiled, heartstoppingly beautiful, and nodded, once.  
  
“Thank you,” Michael said, and then stopped for a second to gather all his self-control back up into a properly dominant attitude. James wanted that, from him; he wanted that too, that drawn-out delayed release, the self-command that would let him focus on James, push his husband—his _husband!_ said a tiny gleeful voice at the back of his mind—to those spectacular heights, shimmering undiscovered peaks.  
  
And also he’d have to not stop and repeat those particular wonderful words too often. They were distracting. They made him just want to sit there and grin. At James, his husband.  
  
His, he thought, one more time. All right, then.  
  
“I told you once that I’d do anything I wanted to, to you, in the bedroom. And you agreed. Anything, you said. Whether I want to make you wait, until you’re begging me to take you, begging for release…or if, and I think you should be paying attention to this one…” Not that James could, exactly, at this moment; but he’d also said that he could still hear the words. Liked being talked to.  
  
So Michael would talk to him. Every time.  
  
“…if I want to watch you come, over and over. Screaming my name, I believe I said.” James quivered everywhere, head to toe, at that. Full-body tremors, as if the voice, the promise, were nearly enough to push him over on their own.  
  
“The screaming…that’s up to you. Anything you feel like, love. But I am going to make you come. For me, on my fingers, from me fucking you, James, until you come for me, and again, and again, until you can’t, until you’re sobbing my name, until you beg me…” He wouldn’t, in reality. At least not the last one of those. But James _did_ like the voice; they both knew that.  
  
“It is our wedding night, after all. I think that calls for…indulgence. Don’t you?” He demonstrated that one with the first push of fingers against that slick little bud, as James whimpered and moaned and responded so beautifully for him, muscles fluttering and giving way to penetration. Slow. Inexorable. Inch by inch, listening to all the ragged sounds, tiny panting noises and pleas for more.  
  
More, because James wanted it. Two fingers, stroking inside him, working to stretch him wide, exposed and wet with lube and displayed for decadent enjoyment.  
  
And then, to highlight the ecstasy with a touch of exquisite frustration, the chiaroscuro of desire and denial, he slid the fingers away, barely resting inside. Stopped, not moving.  
  
James breathed in, twisted yearningly, tried to ask; Michael kept him waiting, and watched those lips move, shaping words, sounds, Michael’s name and please, please, sir, I need to, need you, sir…  
  
He plunged the fingers back in. James cried out, voice desperate and cracking, body opening up around his hand, no resistance at all.  
  
“So beautiful,” Michael told him, and then slipped the hand out, repositioned, one more long finger. Three, now, keeping James full and stretched around him.  
  
He found that spot. The spot that made James gasp and go rigid, jerking helplessly against him. Drips of sticky wetness were pooling over that freckled stomach, leaking from James’s cock, drawn tense and likely aching for relief, that low dull throb of pleasurable pain, by now.  
  
He flicked his fingers over that electric bundle of nerves—those hips arched up into his hand—and then did it again, and again, until James was sobbing with need, not begging out loud any longer, all instinct and craving and need.  
  
“I want you,” he said, to those splendidly inarticulate eyes, “to come when I tell you to. Not before, not after. On command, James. For me.”  
  
James shuddered again, everywhere, hips pushing back against his hand; but Michael knew he was listening, because there was a very faint outline of a _yes, sir_ in the air, sketched by bitten-red lips.  
  
“Good,” he agreed, and crooked fingers again at that specific angle, and stroked—vigorously, because James needed that, they needed that, past all the scar tissue, the new roughnessnes and smooth places and sensitive spots that they’d been relearning together—until James squeezed his eyes shut, hiding the blue, and water-droplets glittered in long eyelashes like crystal.  
  
“James,” Michael said, and then, when James opened eyes like wet sapphires and focused on him without waiting for the spelling-out of the order, “I love you. I love you, I want you to come for me, like this, now.”  
  
James did scream his name, after all, at the peak.  
  
And then collapsed, shaking, into the bed, eyes closed.  
  
Michael reached over with his free hand. Closed fingers around James’s dripping cock; stroked there, too. James made a sound he’d never heard before, a kind of high-pitched helpless cry, and jerked straining hips up into the touch, and a few final pulses of white spattered across the freckles, painting pale skin with erotic splashes of heat.  
  
When Michael traced an inquisitive finger over that shining tip, the response was more like a real sob, oversensitive now, pain beginning to outweigh the pleasure. James didn’t say no, or ask him to stop, but Michael took the hands away regardless and got up and found a washcloth and warm water and cleaned him, very gently, while James trembled softly with aftershocks, with release, with unthinking bliss, and let out uncomprehending tiny noises every time Michael’s hands, or the surface of the cloth, brushed tingling skin.  
  
He stretched out beside all the exhausted freckles, after. Trailed fingers over the closest cheek. James hadn’t been talking, still wasn’t talking; Michael wasn’t worried yet, but might be soon.  
  
“James,” he whispered, leaning over to nudge that beloved nose with his. “Are you awake?”  
  
James blinked, startlement at finding another face millimeters away actually making it past the weariness. Then smiled; and Michael’s heart skipped a beat, performing one joyful somersault in reply. “Yes, sir.”  
  
“Are you…all right?”  
  
The blue eyes went all dark and thoughtful, for a pair of heartbeats, and then James said “Yes, sir?” again.  
  
“Stop,” Michael said, “just for a second, please,” and kissed him, before any insidious doubt could worm its cold way in. “Use my name, if you need to say something, there. And tell me again. Please.”  
  
The smile hovered behind all the jewel-blue brightness, sweet and satisfied, when James kissed him back. “I’m all right. I promise. Michael.”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“No,” James said, “you asked me to say your name,” and then started laughing, brilliant, exhilarated, worn out and lovely, and then put both arms around him and hid his face in Michael’s neck, for a while.  
  
“Shh,” Michael whispered, and offered a careful backrub, soothing, reaffirming, sketching lopsided circles and parabolas over all the clusters of colorful freckles, nutmeg and ginger and gold and cream, dancing in farflung spirals under his touch. “You’re all right, we’re all right, you’re here, I’m here, I love you…”  
  
The words didn’t matter as much as the tone. As his presence, anchoring them to the world, this bed, the antique wood and honey-hued light, and the satin of the sheets.  
  
“—love you,” James whispered back, after a minute, into his chest.  
  
“I know. Better?”  
  
“Yes. That was…you were…”  
  
“Good?” Michael suggested, just to hear that laugh again.  
  
“I don’t think that entirely covers it…”  
  
“Oh…I think it does. For now.”  
  
“For now?”  
  
“You didn’t think we were done, did you?” And then, when James just lay there and stared at him, “I did tell you what I had in mind, you know.”  
  
“You—” James said, eyes huge. “You were—you _were_ serious. Oh god.”  
  
“Still me,” Michael said, and ran a hand down to cup the curves of that delectable backside, still hot to his exploratory caress. “Are you all right with that?"  
  
“With you not being a deity? I think I can live with that, yes.”  
  
“Seriously, please.”  
  
“Seriously yes, then.” James shook hair out of his eyes, stretched out one leg, curled it up again. “Anything you want, with me, you said. Until I beg you to stop. Ah…that part of it wasn’t honestly—”  
  
“No, it wasn’t.” He found James’s throat, with a fingertip. Felt the cadence of a pulse, speeding up again, just above the decadently clinging line of the collar. “Does this hurt?” This, or anything else.  
  
“No. I…might… _oh_.”  
  
“You might like it?” He’d tested something new, this time: his hand wrapping around the back of James’s neck, heavy possessive weight over the leather. His own heart had sped up, too, thumping madly beneath his ribcage. He’d been so cautious, they’d been so cautious, about anyone’s hands reaching for James, there… “James?”  
  
Those summer-ocean eyes blinked at him, from very far off, and then James said, sounding somewhat dazed, “Yes, sir?”  
  
“Is that a question, or are you answering me? Do you…” He tightened the grip, fractionally. Not enough to hurt, not ever. Only letting James feel the pressure. “…like this?”  
  
“ _Yes_.” Practically a gasp. “Yes, sir—Michael—”  
  
“And you…” He hesitated. Uncertain how to ask that question, if James didn’t think of it himself. “Is this…not physically, I mean…”  
  
“You want to know if I’m all right.” One more slow blink, eyelashes sweeping like tumultuous clouds over blue-black seas. “If I…if there might be…memories.”  
  
“Yes. James—yes.”  
  
“There might be. But this…this is you.” James looked at him, all unshakeable confidence and unmistakable desire. “Your hands, on me. I like your hands on me, sir.”  
  
“You said,” Michael said, after a minute, “you wanted me to tie you up. That first time. Can I…”  
  
“Yes, please.” James stretched out on the bed, amid all the reckless pillow-scatterings. Lifted arms over his head, and waited. Michael sprinted across the room, dove into their bags, came back with the silk scarves that’d made James laugh earlier, luxurious onyx-black and midnight-blue.  
  
When he finished securing James to the headboard—the delicately carved mermaids proved astoundingly convenient in this regard, outstretched arms holding restraints as if they were meant for that purpose—he tucked the spare ends, whisper-fine fabric, into James’s fingers. James smiled again, quick and wistful,  acknowledging the gesture: he could let go, if he needed to, and the knots would slide free.  
  
“I love you,” Michael told him, looking down at those eyes, that hair, spread out over the sheets, white linen and dark waves and sea-spray gaze; and James tipped his head to one side and breathed a kiss into the air, minus the use of hands, from inches away.  
  
“Is that a suggestion,” Michael said, cheerfully, and then, while James was visibly trying to figure out what to answer, slid down the bed and took the length of him into his own mouth, lips and tongue and teeth; stopped to look up and say, “This time I want you to come when you need to, you don’t need to ask me, and by when I mean _whenever_ you need to, all right,” and then went back to what he’d been doing, plus two fingers working their way into that sensitive space, where muscles remained loose and slick and easily entered with a single thrust.  
  
James, given this openended permission, came almost instantly, gasping and crying his name, hips snapping upwards as Michael swallowed him down, every last burst of orgasm. Too fast, really, Michael decided, and promptly tied his ankles down, too, for the next round. Patience, in the face of overwhelming desire, was a virtue, after all.  
  
After the third earthshattering climax, James was moaning at every touch, every flick of fingers over  his skin, his empty cock, wrung dry now but still twitching helplessly when Michael touched him. He tried to curl up in the bed, whimpering, when Michael kissed his stomach; the restraints kept him in place, and Michael wondered briefly whether he remembered that he could free himself, or if he’d forgotten, or if he simply didn’t know anymore.  
  
“James,” he murmured, fingers brushing over swollen lips, the redness a memento of searing kisses, of James’s own biting into them in uncontrolled ecstasy. “Still here?”  
  
He got a little hum of gratification in reply; James opened his mouth and nibbled at Michael’s fingers, from somewhere far away and rainbow-hued and saturated with sensation.  
  
“Good. I want to ask you something. Can you answer me?”  
  
There was an extended lack of reaction, at that, and Michael almost gave in to the abrupt icy fear—too much, too far, too fast, and he needed James to be capable of consent, always—but then he saw the nod, and that was real, even if it did appear that James was having to think about each movement.  
  
“I know you’re tired. I know I’ve pushed you. And you’ve done so well, love, everything I’ve asked…” James breathed in, just once, at the compliment; he couldn’t tell whether that was the old deeply-buried streak of self-doubt surfacing now, or genuine acceptance of Michael’s conviction, comprehension of the truth of the words. But he hoped it was the latter. Thought that maybe it was. “Can I ask you for one more thing? If you say yes?”  
  
He was kneeling over James; he leaned forward, let James feel the length and breadth and weight of his own arousal, throbbing between them, rocking up to make those desires incontrovertibly known. “I’d like to come inside you, love. Like this, with you like this, so beautiful, opened wide for me and wet and probably a little sore, and I’m sorry, I’ll be gentle, I swear, James, but I want to feel you like this when I come. You letting me have this, have you. Mine.”  
  
James whimpered, eyes closing; tried to move his legs, ankles tugging against the bonds. Michael wove a hand through his hair, then down to the collar, and curled one finger through black leather, a reminder: possession, but also security. He was here. Holding on.  
  
“I need you to tell me.” He rubbed his cock along James’s hip again. So good, even that brief indulgence; and if James said no he could get off just like this anyway, himself kneeling over James’s exhausted body, covered with the visible marks of ownership, the sticky-sweet residue of orgasms, the scents of salt and skin and themselves.  
  
But he did want to feel that body around him, when the climax came.  
  
And he had to ask.  
  
James swallowed. Breathed, “Michael,” tartan-folds of that glowing voice almost worn into nonexistence.  
  
“Good,” Michael whispered back, “good, yes, thank you, I know it’s hard, thank you for talking to me,” and kissed him again, on the lips, less erotic and more tender, for the effort.  
  
“You…want me to decide? I can’t…”  
  
“Yes, you can. It’s always up to you.”   
  
“I can’t,” James whispered, voice cracking. “Sir. I’m yours, please, I can’t—I can’t tell you what to do, not now, please—”  
  
“Oh,” Michael said, swiftly, and kissed him again. “No. I’m not asking you to tell me what to do. I know you don’t want that. I’m only asking you to say yes, or no. All right?”  
  
He waited. James breathed. In, and out. Then, unexpectedly, said, “Legs, please.”  
  
“What—oh, no, fuck, sorry, sorry, here—” He could barely breathe, himself, looking at James after. Oh god. Oh, god. “Is that—are you—I’m so sorry—”  
  
“Michael,” James murmured, and he must’ve been shaking, because he felt himself go still at the butterfly kiss of those fingers on his cheek.  
  
Fingers?  
  
“Did you—you let go of the— _are you all right?”_  
  
“Yes,” James said, simply, straightforwardly, hands running up and down his back now, finding his shoulders, pulling him closer. “I am. I only wanted to feel you, for this, sir.”  
  
“You—wait, you aren’t—”  
  
“I’m spectacular. I want you to fuck me. I want your hands on me, and I want you to come inside me, so that I can feel you, all of you, filling me. I want you spilling out of me when I move, and covering me with you, and kissing me when you fuck me, so hard I’ll feel it for days. I love you. Sir.”  
  
“…oh god,” Michael said, weakly.  
  
James wrapped a newly freed leg around his waist, and added, “Please,” and Michael’s last shreds of self-control imploded. James _was_ fine. More than fine. Absolutely obscenely erotically perfect.  
  
And he wanted it all, too.  
  
“You want me to make you feel it,” he said, hearing the scrape of his own voice, low and intense, “and _I want you to,”_ and then grabbed both of James’s wrists and pinned them to the bed, on the bare mattress because all the pillows had fallen off somewhere, and positively reveled in the consequent thrilled gasp.  
  
He shoved James’s legs up and apart, not that they needed much coaxing, and lined their bodies up; glanced one more time at beckoning blue eyes, and then thrust. Hard, as requested.  
  
James cried his name, luscious accent splintering and fraying over the syllables as Michael took him, cock buried deep in unresisting heat; when Michael grabbed his hips and lifted, finding _that_ angle, the voice dissolved into wordless sobs and pants of rapture. The next time he moved, the noise was nearly a scream, James’s wrists twisting in his grasp, not trying to escape but asking for more, the sensation of Michael’s body against his, holding him.  
  
He caught one of those hands. Then the other, and the closest scarf, and got those wrists bound together without looking, which he’d count among his better accomplishments, later. Right now he needed his fingers.  
  
He withdrew, sparking a moan of complaint, deprivation, need; plunged back in, feeling all those muscles surrender and give way. James made that sound again, almost a scream but too hoarse and broken for that, and Michael reached up and laid fingers, firmly but kindly, across his mouth.  
  
James stopped panting, shocked. Went very still. Michael stopped everything, too, and tried not to think about the enormity of what he’d just asked for, tried to only think about James and not the rush of his own trepidation and desire, thundering in his ears.  
  
And then James smiled—he could feel the curve of lips, against his hand—and looked right at him, deliberately. And nodded.  
  
“You’re so fucking incredible,” Michael said, “honestly, you are, I love you, so much,” and then moved again, himself inside James, and incredible was the right word, because he got to have this, because James wanted to give him even this, because they were married and they were in love and the whole damn universe was perfect, unbelievably so.  
  
He wasn’t cutting off all of James’s air, not quite, he couldn’t bring himself to do that, but the tiny gulps James could manage wouldn’t be enough, either, not with all the other sensations, overwhelming and concentrated and ceaseless. He pressed the fingers over those lips a bit more decisively, the gold of his ring shining up at them, and James tried and failed to inhale, behind his hand, and then shivered all over at the physical recognition of that fact.  
  
And that motion, the expression in blue eyes at that realization, the unquestioning love and trust and submission and joy, exploded through him like the exuberance of fireworks, and he’d meant to make it last longer but suddenly he was right there, and those fireworks were racing along his spine and down to his toes and turning the whole world into prisms of light, and he felt himself coming deep inside James. Who moaned, under his hand, Michael’s collar around his neck, and tightened impossibly around him, exquisite slick clenching that pulled the last drops out of him with a groan.  
  
For a while, he just clung to James, in the wreckage of the bed, both of them sweaty and sticky and shivering, and tried to recall how to get his lungs to work, through the fading eruptions.  
  
James. Yes. Who wasn’t talking, though Michael had at least remembered to move the hand, in the immediate aftermath. Who wasn’t moving, either, wrists still bound by Michael’s hasty disaster of a knot, legs tangled up with his, head on his shoulder, eyes invisible. Breathing too fast.  
  
“James,” he panted, and pushed himself up on elbows, and then cradled the closest cheek in one hand, awkwardly rubbing his thumb across tear-marked freckles. “James. Love. Please.”  
  
James sighed, barely perceptible, and nuzzled his face into Michael’s hand.  
  
“Okay. Okay, don’t move, you don’t have to…” As he slid out, James’s legs fell open across the bed; a trickle of wetness, himself, the lube, the intimate reminders of everything they’d just done, followed, limning the pink and silver streaks of old wounds.  
  
Michael swallowed. Felt the lump in his throat, his heart: so sweet it was painful, heartbreakingly right. After everything, this was right.  
  
He unfastened James’s wrists, after a few complicated seconds of puzzling over his own knot-tying prowess. Fortunately the scarf was cooperative, and James pliant, enough that he didn’t have to unravel it completely. Might be a problem for later; not for now.  
  
He touched James’s face again. “Can you sit up?”  
  
This earned a small headshake; “Okay,” Michael said again, and slid down on the bed and held him, simply held him, until the trembling, both visible and not, went away. Arms, and legs, and his own body as a grounding-point; kite-strings, he thought again, drawing James back down.  
  
Eventually he heard the faint exhale, the sound that was next-door to his name, winging its way over bare skin, flying between them. He kissed James’s forehead, softly. “Back, yet?”  
  
Another sigh, this one containing a slight hint of amusement. “I think so…” One more quick shiver, though, belying the words; Michael draped a leg over his hips, extra anchorage if needed, and sensed more than saw the answering smile.  
  
“Thank you, sir.”  
  
“Oh…still?”  
  
“Mmm…for now.” James repositioned that head against his chest, yawned, closed his eyes. “Love you.”  
  
“Love you.” He let his hand wander down to reddened curves, experimentally. James didn’t object at first, but winced, noticeably, at the first hint of pressure. “Sorry. Is this…”  
  
“…that bad? No. I’m only not used to it, anymore…I could be used to it again, sir. Oh—did you want me to use your name? Sorry…”  
  
“No,” Michael murmured, gazing down at all the hair, the sleepy eyes, the bravery, “anything you want, love, ever,” which James might or might not’ve heard, falling fulfilled and sated into sleep.  
  
Michael put both arms around him, and closed his own eyes, and didn’t quite sleep—he’d have to get them up, should get James into the shower, at some point—but allowed himself to drift, thinking about dreams and lost-and-found gloves and perfectly matched other halves.  
  
James, by the time they finally got to the shower—once Michael’d caught a glimpse of the time and run through a few choice profanities in his head, especially after that spontaneous gasp when James first tried to sit up—seemed to’ve forgotten how to talk. Silence, despite a flash of luminous smile when Michael’s arms supported him; silence when Michael asked whether he was all right, whether anything hurt, his throat or otherwise.  
  
James nodded emphatically to the first question, shook his head at the second, and just shrugged a little, smiling faintly, and leaned into Michael’s taller strength, under the cloud of cleansing water and heat.  
  
It might’ve been the collar, he thought. James had parted those lips, about to speak, when he’d unfastened it, stripped it off. Hadn’t said anything after all, had only lifted one hand to discover naked skin, eyes full of some indecipherable emotion.  
  
“Too fast?” he’d asked, because that happened, he knew it did, and he could leave a hand on a wrist or a foot pinning James’s to the floor if necessary, to let him surface more slowly, no perils of changing pressure too soon.  
  
James had shrugged again, with both expressive eyebrows; nodded, but only after seeming to think about the question for longer than usual. Then had picked up Michael’s hand, the one that’d been over his mouth, and kissed it.  
  
“I’m happy,” he tried now, in case that was what was going through that head. “I don’t think I said. After, I mean. That last time. You were…that was…I did say incredible. For me, too, you know that, right? It was. You were. You always are, you’re so good, for me, but that was…I love you, James.”  
  
James smiled at him once more for that. Then dropped to his knees, and Michael’s first instinct was to reach down and help; and then he felt hands on his skin and figured out that James had also taken the soap.  
  
“Oh…um. James? This is…new…”  
  
The hands didn’t pause, occupied with soap and lather and cleaning Michael’s thigh. But James did look up, and the incandescent happiness in that expression took his breath away.  
  
James blushed, still without saying anything, and went back to lavishing attention on a hairy calf.  
  
“I…don’t normally spend that much time washing my ankles…” Testing; it worked, because James let out a small huff of amusement, and then leaned into his leg, kneeling on the shower tile with his cheek pressed against Michael’s hip, eyes closed and wet hair sneaking up over Michael’s skin as if it wanted to hold on too, under the steady fall of the shower’s rain. Michael put an arm around him, because it seemed natural, the right thing to do, and held him there.  
  
Eventually, James lifted his head, left a kiss behind, imprint searing its way up to Michael’s heart. Looked up, and, when Michael held out a hand, let himself be tugged to his feet. “Thank you.”  
  
“Me? I think you were the one washing every inch of me, just now. Are you…”  
  
“Good. I love you.” James didn’t offer, and Michael didn’t ask for, the whys and the reasons. No need.  
  
After the shower, soap-clean and scalded pink from the heat, he settled James in the closest chair, under a pile of blankets. James considered this gesture, eyes intrigued, hair drying in unlikely loops and crooked waves. “Not the bed?”  
  
“Um. Hang on,” Michael said, and went to wrestle the sheets off and new ones on, with ruthless efficiency. James started to get up; Michael fixed him with a purposeful stare. “Don’t even think about it.”  
  
“But—”  
  
“I asked them to give us extra sheets for a reason. For this reason. Stay put.”  
  
“You do like to plan ahead.”  
  
“You like me planning ahead. I said stay put. You don’t need to help. Anyway, nearly done.”  
  
“You’re impressively good at that. Are you trying to take care of me?”  
  
“My father worked in a hotel. I know you know that. And…yes.”  
  
“As a chef, you said. Nothing related to bedsheets, unless you were chasing the maids around. You don’t have to, but thank you.” James rested his chin on one hand, under a snowdrift heap of blanket-fluff.  “I think I like this hotel. It likes you.”  
  
“No comment about the maids. It likes you, too. Everything does. That pillow, the headboard, those curtains…” He came back over to James’s fabric-swathed throne. Offered both hands, knight to liege lord; James laughed, and took them.  
  
“Oh, wait, one more thing, sorry—”  
  
“There’s more? I’m already having the best day of—well, of my life. Ever. I love being married to you.” James sat up, adorable and rumpled and baffled, and a dandelion-wisp of lint-fuzz caught in a loop of hair. Of course even the blankets would hold on to him with all their might, Michael concluded, amused, entertained, in love. He opted not to mention the piece of fuzz.  
  
“And I love being married to you. Here.” He’d stocked the room with certain amenities, earlier. Was gratified to discover that the single-cup coffee-maker did indeed work quickly. The scent of raspberries and cream and mocha filled the room.  
  
“All right,” James said, taking the cup, “now I might love being married to you even more.”  
  
“You taste like raspberries.”  
  
“Not there I don’t. Don’t make me spill this; you made it for me, and I’m going to appreciate it. Every sip. Caffeine? Or not?”  
  
“Not, actually. I thought…”  
  
“…I might want some rest?” One more smile, an adventurous sunbeam somehow straying into their room in the depths of night, over the edge of the mug. “You do realize it’s already morning. Well into morning. Practically sunrise. Want to watch the sun rise, with me?”  
  
“Always.” He joined James under the blankets, tucking the freckles in under his arm, at his side where they belonged. Ran his hand along the back of that neck, naked now, damp from the shower. Toyed with all that hair, loving the way it coiled pertly around his fingers. “But…if you were tired, if you are…”  
  
“I’d tell you. You know that.”  
  
“I know. I was just thinking…you did say you liked the hotel. And I know we’ve not—we haven’t spent much time out, away from—from home, and this is—we’re not that far away, we could go home any time, so if you wanted to we could…stay an extra day? Or two?”  
  
James took another sip of decadent coffee, quietly.  
  
“Or…you know, not. If you want to go home. Like we planned. It was just an idea. It was just—no, never mind, all right, I know hotels aren’t—”  
  
“At least three.”  
  
“…what?”  
  
“Days,” James said, grinning, licking whipped cream from satisfied lips. “At least three. We’ve not even properly slept in this bed, yet, and it wants us to.”  
  
“James—”  
  
“Besides…I could get used to this. Hotel rooms, with you. That first hotel room, with you…I wonder if I’d still fit into any of the X-Men costumes, for the sequel…”  
  
“For the—oh my _god_.”  
  
“Not promising anything, and not any time soon. We’ll see how that first try goes. And this hotel room. But…”  
  
“James,” Michael managed, through all the disbelieving shock, the astounded joy, “yes. You—this—the next three days, and everything, and I’ll be there with you, forever, you know that, and—and _yes_.”  
  
“Well, then.” James put his head on Michael’s shoulder, contented and blanket-cradled, coffee secure in both hands, raspberry steam meandering idly up to flirt with dark eyelashes. “Forever.”  
  
“That first hotel room,” Michael said, leaning his head to rest on top of his husband’s. “I should’ve just asked you that night.”  
  
“Hmm?”  
  
“I told you, back then, that I wanted you in my hotel room every night. In my bed every morning. So that you’d be the last thing I saw before I fell asleep, and the first thing I saw waking up, and also I’d want to make coffee for you every morning and hold you when you’re cold. And you know—you should know—that’s always going to be true, it was true then—I think I was proposing to you even then.”  
  
“You barely knew me,” James observed, amusement rippling through the complex currents of that voice, eyes laughing up at him like merry oceans, “you’d not even told me you loved me, yet, back then…”  
  
“Still,” Michael said, meaning it. And James met his gaze, through the skyward drifting swirl of heat and sweetness. Smiled, the warmth of it tangible everywhere, and said, “I mean it, too. Then, and now, and always. Yes.”


End file.
